


my heart with you

by 100hearteyes



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, Clexa Pride Week, Day 7 - Free Day, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Princess Clarke, Space Pirates, Uneasy Allies, and clarke dressed in Roman-like clothes, and grumpy clarke, basically this is what I like to call self-service, i've lost the ability to tag, ngl this is just my excuse to objectify space pirate lexa with an eyepatch, well more like people who dislike each other to lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-05-29 17:07:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 25,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19404529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/100hearteyes/pseuds/100hearteyes
Summary: The first thing she sees is a face. Soft lips, tall cheekbones, the greenest eye she’s ever seen — the other one is covered by an eyepatch. All the makings of a pirate.Therefore, Clarke does what is best in this sort of situation.She spits on the woman’s face.OrClarke runs away from home in search of a way to save her people, but a series of unfortunate events leads her straight into a pirate ship. The captain is none other than Lexa, a formidable space outlaw with an eyepatch.





	1. in this cold heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: this chapter has very mild violence and a threat of rape but I swear nothing actually happens and never will 🙏

_Bleeding_

_I’m bleeding_

_My cold little heart_

-Michael Kiwanuka

(Cold Little Heart)

* * *

Night has long since cast its blanket over the sky and sent the sun to sleep with a kiss to the forehead and the promise of tomorrow. It is the kind of night that lingers, quiet and still, in preparation for the big day ahead — like it isn’t ready for the day to come, not yet.

The lights of the palace are on, but not even a whisper can be heard between the winding, marbled walls. When Clarke leaves her room and tiptoesdown the hall; every step, however careful, sounds too loud and every rustle of fabric makes her anxiety skyrocket and chips away at her determination. Still she keeps going, resolute as she has ever been, until the last door out of the palace closes behind her and cold air meets her lungs.

Phorcys is a planet unlike many others in the galaxy. It’s made of air and water alone, no ground for feet to run bare on. It was some long-gone colonization architect’s brain child, to build entire cities that either stood afloat the boundless sea or stayed suspended in the air with nothing to hang from. The finished product was a work of art: tall, round-angled buildings swathed in pearl and gold that spoke of technology and ancient civilizations against a backdrop of still blue. The atmosphere it created wrapped itself up around the newcomers in such a way that it shaped their very lifestyle, customs, and outlook on life.

Phorcys soon became the embodiment of the recapitulationof the Renaissance period, thousands of years after the first one. Under the banner of progress, it climbed up the ranks of power and influence in the galaxy, cementing its status by way of combining the art and grace of the beginnings of Human history with a penchant for technological innovation. The counterweight is the obdurate traditionalism that has developed within certain sectors of its social structure.

All this was evident when Clarke tried to find something inconspicuous to wear and was met only with shades of white, gold, and blue. An issue she overcame by cutting her dark grey curtains into a poncho that would cover her upper half effectively. Now, as she trudges through the dark and down streets, bridges, and elevators unseen, she pats herself in the back for her ingenuity.

Once on the water-level part of town she gives herself a moment to look up one last time at the city that has been her home all her life. Arkadia, the capital of Phorcys, is the standard-bearer for all that the planet strives and stands for. Every ideal is sewn into the fabric of the city and shown proudly for all to see. The flying buildings overhead, complex in shape and simple in color, framed by a clean, starry sky, make for a breathtaking view. One she knows she may never see again if she does this (and her mind is set on doing it). Her heart beats once for her mother, twice for father, thrice for her brother and friends, and then she glues her eyes and mind back to her goal and resumes her fast trek towards the deck. There is a hangar next to the palace, but going therewould defeat the purpose of her escape — she wants to be as far away as possible from Phorcys before anyone realizes she’s gone. So she crosses the city and heads to the harbor, where she knows a clandestine ship awaits.

As someone who lives on a planet with no land, Clarke has had to learn how to pilot from a young age. Her father, whose love for technology was only equaled by the love for his family, took it a step further and made sure that she knew how to pilot nearly every kind of ship there is. Little did he know that it would later help her run away from home.

She finds the ship — a dark brown hull barely large enough for two people, thin crimson sails — in a recluse corner of the harbor, kept under watch by her best friend Wells. She runs to him and, before he can get a single word in, her arms are wrapped around his neck and she’s holding tears back against his shirt.

It’s Wells who breaks the hug, holding her hands and finding her eyes, as he always does when he needs to relay something important. As he did when— Clarke shakes her head, stopping herself from thinking about it. She focuses on her friend’s instructions.

“This ship is silent on water so no one will hear you leave. When you lose sight of Arkadia, press the purple button and up you go. It has enough fuel to get you to Cam’aha. I’ve already inserted the coordinates, so you don’t need to worry about that. There you can buya bigger and better ship and—did you bring the money?” Clarke nods, pats one of her pockets. “Good. Now, go, before anyone notices you’re missing.”

This time, it’s Wells who initiates the hug, squeezing her with such fervor she struggles to breathe. His arms have always been a source of comfort for Clarke. They held her when they first met; they held her when her dog died; they held her when she laughed to tears and every time she cried; they held her when Timmy broke her heart and when Astra broke up with her to pursue a life of adventure; they held her through every heartbreak and every breakthrough; they held her when she knew her fate was sealed, then when she decided to steal her life back, and they hold her now, despite the fact that she is about to leave them behind.

“I’m going to miss you.”

Those five words almost cause her resolve to crumble. Not the thought of her parents, her brother, her other friends, or all that she’s leaving behind — it’s her very best friend, her brother though not by blood, her platonic soulmate telling her, not in those exact words, that a piece of his heart will always be missing from now on. It’s the reminder that she will probably never see him again — and her heart, too, will no longer be whole.

“Don’t you dare give up now,” he whispers into her ear, and her fingers tighten around his clothes in a tacit ‘thank you’. He knows her too well. “I love you, Clarke. And I went through way too much trouble for you to give up now.”

She laughs, wet and ragged, and he frees her from the embrace so she can wipe the pooling tears from her eyes. He doesn’t mention the tears, makes no effort to help her wipe them away; that’s not what she needs. Instead he waits, patient and steady, eyes shining and a bittersweet smile on his lips.

“I love you too, Wells. And I’m going to miss you so much.”

They ignore the way her voice breaks on the last few words. Their focus is better spent in hugging again. And this time, when she parts from his embrace, she does so with a lingering kiss to his cheek.

No more words are said before she climbs onto the ship and starts the engine. As the boat veers towards the open ocean, ready to leave her life behind, Clarke looks back. She finds Wells watching her, looking as steady as he has been for the past twenty years, even if his heart is breaking inside his chest. She knows this because the same thing is happening to hers.

* * *

Clarke doesn’t look back until she’s sure all she will see is night and stars.

The small journey towards thick darkness is peaceful. Storms are rare on Phorcys; even when it rains, it’s just a small drizzle and the sea seldom gets angry. Tonight is no exception.

She presses the purple button and the sails descend on the hull and wrap themselves around it, thick and unyielding, turning the bare boat into a spaceship. The keel splits in two and both halves traverse to the sides of the ship, turning until their flat sides are parallel to the surface of the water, now bona fide wings ready to break the ship into outer space.

Clarke clutches the yoke and steers it up. The craft follows the movement, lifting off the water fluidly. It’s always thrilling to feel airborne; boundless. In the sea, she is limited by the width of her planet. In the air, she can keep going and going, beyond Phorcys and past planets, nebulas, asteroids, and stars.

For all the innovation and enlightenment their leadership boasts of, the aristocracy of Phorcys is appallingly retrograde when it comes to certain matters. Clarke dreams of visiting new galaxies, meeting new people, learning new cultures. She dreams of worlds far beyond her own, where she won’t be held back by the weight of responsibility and tradition.

But responsibility is exactly what this is about. Her responsibility to her people. Whether she stays or goes, she can never be free of its shackles. She wears them proudly around her wrists, the golden cuffs wrapped around them an embodiment of her duty. She bears the weight with her back straight and eyes cast forward, even if others might mistake the upturn of her chin for conceit.

Clarke lets the autopilot take over and lead her away from her planet and her thoughts.

Cam’aha comes into view a few hours later in swirls of russet and sooty. It’s not as big a planet as Clarke’s home, but the tall mountains and wide deserts are still impressive. She drives the ship to the nearest dock and parks in one of the scarce free spaces.

The place is bustling with activity, although not the kind she is used to. The rich, Hellenic patterns of Arkadia are replaced by people of all species, dressed in somber tones that speak not of sobriety, but of a need to fuse with the environment.

Cam’aha isn’t known for its welcoming atmosphere. On the contrary — under lax laws and an obstinate resistance to make either allies or enemies, this planet has become privileged neutral ground for the dishonest and crooked. Which is why Clarke has chosen it as the first stop on her new journey — somewhere she knows she can find a new spaceship off the records.

The first thing she does is find a bar, where she knows she can make a deal under the table. _The Forlorn Brother_ ticks all the stereotypical, shady boxes: outside, the nameplate swings with the breeze in an eerie creak; inside, the air is thick with smoke, every other guy is wearing a cowboy hat, and the tables at the center are under siege by indomitable gamblers.

Clarke surveys the booths that line the walls, searching for someone that looks shady enough to make a deal with her but not like they might relieve her of everything she owns. Her eyes catch a burly, apparently human man with a bald head and a beard, and a tattoo that runs down his right temple. He looks surly, lips pulled back into a golden-teethed growl, but otherwise harmless. Clarke doesn’t give him time to take another gulp of his beer when his previous company leaves the booth — she sits down across from him, arms crossed authoritatively, confident that she’s doing a good job at hiding her insecurity.

“I’m looking for a spaceship.”

His eyes are an unkind blue as they sweep along her body, and she does her best not to squirm under the unwanted attention.

“Hello to you too, darling,” he mocks her, raising the tankard to his lips and taking a large gulp. His voice is gruff; it grates at her nerves like a vexing itch, scraping its nails against the chalkboard of her temples. “The name’s Quint.”

“Elyza,” she lies.

“Ok. _Elyza_.” The way he says her name tells her he didn’t buy her small lie. But that’s not what she’s here for, so she keeps staring him down impassively. “You got money for a ship?”

“Money isn’t a problem for me.”

Maybe that was the wrong thing to say, because his eyes darken and his lips twist into a scowl.

“I ain’t got time for this.”

Clarke’s temper flares and she uncrosses her arms, leaning over the table. She hopes she looks as menacing as she feels. “And what exactly do you think _this_ is?”

“Little, privileged girl running from home, tryin’ to show she’s ‘independent’,” he drawls, making air quotes with his fingers. “You’ll be back to momma’s arms in a week.”

“That’s not what I’m doing.”

She holds his piercing stare, determined not to break first. This is a test to her resilience; if she breaks, she will fit the bill. And she doesn’t — her decision was one far too swayed by responsibility to be waved off as a spoiled girl’s caprice. Thus, she ploughs through the burning feeling in her eyes and the burgeoning fear of failure and doesn’t allow herself to avert her gaze.

In the end, Quint breaks the eye contact with a huff, then grins and leans against the dark green leather of the booth. “You’re telling the truth.”

Clarke refrains from rolling her eyes. “I am.”

“Fine. Lemme make a call and I’ll have a ship ready for you. You’re lucky a friend of mine just won a craft from one of those suckers,” he jerks his thumb at the gambling tables. “Meanwhile, have a beer. It’s on me.”

Quint stands up and tells a waiter to get Clarke a beer, before disappearing into a corner. When a jug full of the copper liquid is placed in front of her, she sips it carefully — although she’s seen her parents drink beer several times before, she’s never had one herself, too disconcerted by its color and smell to dare having a taste. She does, now, and her nose wrinkles at the sharp, bitter taste and the way it seems to hold her tongue in a spiky grip. Definitely not for her.

She’s saved from having to take another gulp by Quint returning to the booth.

“Alright, kid, all set. You ready?”

Clarke nods and follows him out of the bar. His pace is brisk and she has some trouble keeping up, but doesn’t tell him to slow down, lest he smell weakness. He does slow down, however, if only to fall into step with her and be able to talk.

“We’re gonna meet my friend and he’ll give you everything you need for the ship to be officially yours. You pay the both of us and then he’ll tell you where it is, that fine with you?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. This way.”

The streets they march through do nothing to calm her nerves. Gone are the open squares and wide streets — now, their shoulders almost touch the buildings on both sides and the sun slants uneasily through scant openings to streak their path with random strips of light. Everything looks dirtier as they progress and the few people they find look dubious at best. Still Clarke holds on to her resolve and matches Quint step for step.

They reach a dead-end. There are doors on both sides, but Quint enters none of them. Confused, Clarke turns to look at him, only to find him already staring back, his eyes dark and ravenous and two lines of golden teeth showing through the wide opening of a chilling smile.

“Bag her up, guys.”

Something hard hits her head before everything fades to black.

* * *

When Clarke comes to, it’s to Quint’s face taking up the entirety of her field of sight, his disgusting sneer held in place. She’s sitting on a chair, wrists and ankles strapped to metal arms and legs. It takes her no more than a second to remember what happened.

 _Stupid_.

_Stupid, stupid, stupid._

She anathematizes herself for every decision leading up to this moment, wonders if escaping the fate that awaited her on Phorcys was worth this. It wasn’t; it isn’t. Yet she cannot bring herself to regret it. Maybe she can assign the two situations to different boxes and label them separately, independently of one another.

“Hello there, pretty lady.”

Bile gathers in her throat and Clarke feels the sudden need to throw up. Instead, she clenches her jaw and bides her time — there is something even better she can do to him that doesn’t involve scraping her throat raw.

“Not so chatty anymore, are we?” Quint laughs and grabs her face with rough hands. She has no choice but to meet his eyes — what she sees there makes her nauseous all over again. “So easy to fool. So gullible. Like taking candy from a baby. If only you’d kept your pretty mouth shut.”

He laughs again but does not release her face. Her cheeks and jaw hurt under the brute force he’s using to keep her in place.

“You’ll make a nice slave. Hot, spoiled girl turned sex slave. You could housekeep for those who used to housekeep for you. Or maybe I’ll just keep you for myself and force you to service me day. And. Night,” he whispers gruffly, and punctuates his foul words with a forceful kiss to her lips.

Clarke’s reaction is pure reflex — she bites down hard on his lip until she draws blood and when Quint jerks back with a yelp she spits on his face.

He growls, wipes the spit from his face, and slaps her with such force that the chair topples over.

“You bitch!”

It’s only the fact that she’s strapped to the chair that keeps her from crawling as far away from him as possible.

“I’m gonna find out who you are and I’m gonna suck your parents dry for a ransom. And then I’ll keep you for myself anyway!”

Clarke feels the slam of the door vibrate through her bones long after he’s gone.

* * *

It has been around a week, Clarke guesses. She can’t know for sure, since she’s stuck in a windowless room and as such has a limited notion of the passage of time.

What she does know is that she is in a ship — a spaceship, specifically, if the lack of bobbing is any indication. She’s pretty sure they feed her twice a day, hence her calculation that a week has gone by. Quint has visited her again; tried to find out who she is so he can evaluate whether she’s valuable enough to bribe her parents over.

If only he knew.

Clarke Griffin, princess of Phorcys, kidnapped by thugs after trying to escape her home and, they would say, her responsibilities. A story for the tabloids to feast on for years. Maybe it’s exactly what she deserves.

The first four days, she always found a way to break free, so he and his companions resorted to extreme measures. At some point, they blindfolded her. When she still resisted, they tied her so thoroughly that there is now barely an inch of her left uncovered. The only body parts she can move are her fingertips and her head, and even those require Herculean effort. Her entire body aches — her legs, her arms, her ass, but above all her neck and her back, from keeping them straight for days on end. She is powerless to keep the tears from falling whenever the pain sharpens its claws.

It feels like a python has her wrapped between its coils and keeps squeezing, squeezing, squeezing. Every day it’s harder not to entertain the thought of giving up.

Later, Clarke will realize that what happens next started long before she hears a scream from a room nearby. It’s the first of a whole symphony, which grows in volume and frequency, crawling closer and closer at the beckoning of a maestro’s baton until it spills over in a crash that tears through her body like a lightning bolt.

Clarke is sightless, and the pain and the drain of the fight have numbed her other senses too. She hears blurred voices but wouldn’t be able to tell whether they’re close or far away. They must be close, though, for a few seconds later she feels the coils of the python falling away.

Her ribcage swells with all the air it’s suddenly letting inside. It is no longer used to expanding so much and reaching such sizes, and it feels like each rib around her lungs is loosening and elongating after a long, heavy sleep. Much like her limbs and extremities, which bloat and blush and ache from the new, ampler dose of blood flow.

Against her better judgement, Clarke tries to stand up, pawing at the blindfold to push it away from her eyes, but her quick movements make the pain worsen. She feels light-headed, her feet on unsteady ground. The pain is so great that dark blotches start staining her vision. The darkness grows and grows and grows until it’s all she can see.

And then she sees nothing.

* * *

Clarke wakes up to voices. Hushed tones, firm words, soft voices.

People talking not around her, but in front of her, and, if the first, hazy sounds she discerns are to be trusted — about her.

She opens her eyes but sees only darkness and her first instinct is to panic, before she realizes that she’s blindfolded. She’s also sitting against a cold wall and her wrists are bound over her belly. She takes a deep breath, tries to show she’s awake.

The voices stop. Clarke breathes more easily.

“Can you understand me?”

It seems like a women’s voice; soft, delicate, regal even. There is an authority to it, as though every word it speaks mustn’t be questioned and it needn’t be loud to make itself heard over voices that roar like thunder. It sounds like it belongs in the Phorcys court more than the mess Clarke has gotten herself into.

Clarke nods. There is a rustle, the sensation of added presence, and, when the voice makes itself heard again, it sounds much closer — her second captor is kneeling before her.

“What is your name?”

She opens her mouth, but only a croakysound comes out. She swallows around the throbbing dryness of her throat, wets her lips; tries again.

“Clarke.”

“Ok, Clarke.” The voice pauses and takes a small breath. “You were being held captive by Quint. We got you out of there when we looted his ship.”

Clarke’s eyes widen at the voice’s word choice: _looted_. Which means that her first guess wasn’t wrong — she’s been kidnapped by yet another group of criminals. Her thoughts are interrupted by the sound of her name. A soft click over the ‘k’, every letter tasted carefully.

“I am going to remove your blindfold. Please don’t do anything stupid.”

Her first reaction, when the blindfold is tugged up and off her head, is to screw her eyes shut against the harsh light. She hasn’t seen anything other than darkness for a week, so the tiniest sliver of brightness is like looking directly at one of the three suns that shine over Phorcys.

She gathers her bravery, one peek and two eyelashes at a time, and opens her eyes slowly, lets them adapt to the light before each new millimeter. After a few seconds, the brightness in the room stops bothering her and she opens her eyes fully.

The first thing she sees is a face. She assumes it’s a woman’s. Soft lips, tall cheekbones, the greenest eye she’s ever seen — the other one is covered by an eyepatch.

All the makings of a pirate.

And Clarke is battered, bruised, tired. She doesn’t know whether the tears pooling at her eyes are from frustration, or pain, or both. She’s had to leave her home and everything she knows behind in the dead of the night, like an outlaw. She’s been kidnapped by a very bad man who wanted to do horrible things to her. And now, just when she thought she would have some reprieve — now she’s been kidnapped from her kidnappers and who knows what this woman wants with her.

Therefore, Clarke does what may not be the best thing, but is certainly the only one that will bring her any relief.

She spits on the woman’s face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know - I already have an ongoing fic. But I'm obsessed with this concept 🤷♀️
> 
> Please follow my awesome beta on Tumblr @booksmusicandtheatre
> 
> And come talk to me @100hearteyes


	2. no straight road to take me home

_There's no good way_  
_Tonight to make me okay_  
_No voice to calm_  
_My rainy head_

-Aaron Wright

(Song for the Waiting)

* * *

Clarke is not surprised that the pirate with the eyepatch — the captain of this ship, she presumes — sent her to the cells after her little water sport demonstration.

It’s no less frustrating, though. She’s been through hell and back, having been kidnapped not once, but twice after running away from home — she’s had more than enough by now.

Yet she waits patiently for someone to come talk to her. The pirate will want to know who she is and where she’s from, if only to figure out if and how she might be useful onboard. They could also want to sell her as a slave or ask for a hefty ransom. The possibilities are endless and the longer she stays in this cell the more she can come up with.

Therefore, Clarke tries to focus on assessing the architectural merits of the cell she’s been put in. It’s dark, as one would expect cells to be, but the small cot in the corner is surprisingly comfortable. There is a pristine-looking toilet in another corner, and everything is very tidy, with no markings on the floor nor on the walls. It would resemble an actual bedroom, were it not for the greenish laser door and the fact that it’s dark and windowless. It’s meant to keep people captive rather than comfortable.

The hallway outside is all wood, as though it’s been directly adapted from ancient ships. It’s a strange choice, for sure, but one she doesn’t question. A study in interior design is the last thing on her mind at the moment.

She feels like a wounded animal, somewhere in the woods, that has escaped a trap only to fall into another. And then she escaped that trap — and fell into a third one.

She feels like prey.

She feels small, trapped between the lines of a book written for herby the hands of bigger, more powerful people who move her across the checkered board of blacks and whites like a pawn headed to the front line. She took the first step but has already been knocked out of the board by all the pieces that can move in more directions than one.However, instead of facing towers and bishops and knights, Clarke has ended up looking down the barrel of a pirate’s gun.

Clarke has heard many pirate stories, some worse than others. Until just a week ago, she’d never travelled far beyond her star system, so she often had to rely on hearsay. Her parents were intent on keeping her safe within the confines of the palace, where those stories would never have reached her ears, but that only encouraged her. With Wells in tow, she would sneak out of the palace after dusk and roam the streets of Arkadia, blending into the crowd, and borrowing moments and taking mementos of what could have been had she been born into a different crib.

It’s unsettling to think of that reality as the past when just over a week ago it was both present and future.

On the first Sunday of each season, there was a big festival in the lower half of the capital to celebrate the death of the old and the birth of the new. Although the royal family would visit the celebration during the day, it was at night that the party really began and took on its purest, unfettered form.

Every light dangling from the buildings overhead looked like fireflies pinned to the silky, deep blue blanket of the night sky. The streets of Arkadia, usually wide and uncluttered, were flanked by long lines of stalls selling a hodgepodge of products, ranging from food to knickknacks, from (alleged) fortune telling to clothes. Clarke could walk down the streets for hours; trying this on, having a taste of that, letting old bats read the lines of her palm and allowing children to use her face as canvas for colorful lines and swirls that erased every trace of her foreignness. The docks were a beautiful mess of contrasting colors, the water and pavement swathed in an orange glow created by strings upon strings of fairy lights hanging from every ship.

Clarke’s favorite part, however, was the main square.

People from the farthest corners of the universe would travel to Phorcys for the festival, most of them to see the fire show. As dangerous as it was spectacular, it served as a love letter to the things they would never have — nostalgia for something they knew existed but could never experience on Phorcys — like fire and earth. Clarke enjoyed it, but she was partial to how the main square would empty of tourists and only a motley group of people would remain, seated around the bonfire. The Bard (no one knew his real name) would play a soothing song on his guitar, a perfect soundtrack to the gravelly voice of Crazy Kroozy, a man with one too many loose screws and an appetite for scaring little kids with horror stories, who would tell the tales of pirates so brave and so carefree they sounded like myths more than real people.

Clarke has heard stories about Barbaporpora, the pirate with a purple-dyed beard who would loot the greatest treasures and fall to bed with the fairest men and women. Captain Roo-Pol found every last one of Earth’s lost treasures a week before Humanity’s old home exploded. More recently, Crazy Kroozy told the tales of Slade Silver, the common sailor who became a pirate in order to make enough money to earn his beloved’s hand in marriage — when he returned, rich and desired by many, his beloved’s parents laughed in his face, saying they would never allow their son to marry an outlaw.

 _Natripa_ is the subject of many a legend, her very existence questioned by skeptics: some say she defeated a whole fleet with only a burning ship; others swear she’s already escaped twenty prisons (Clarke guesses the number will have risen since she heard the tale) and has a collection of stolen ships greater than anyone has ever seen; she heard the story of how she fought to the death for captaincy and came out victorious after just three seconds; some even dare claim that she once survived a black hole. However, no pirate is more famous than Zheng Yi Sao, whose intelligence, cunning, and affinity to power have made her the most successful pirate of all time — the Red Flag Fleet includes over 1500 recorded ships. No one has heard anything about her for the last three or four years, though.

Clarke knows that the pirate life is one of betrayal, intrigue, and violence. She has no desire to be part of it, but her responsibility to her people speaks louder.

The sound of thick-booted steps approaching alert Clarke to someone’s incoming arrival. She hears automatic doors open and a few seconds later the laser door to her cell disappears.

Just outside the cell stand the fair-skinned Captain, with the eyepatch and hair pulled back in braids, and two other people: one appears to be an olive-skinned girl, with long, dark hair up in a ponytail and clever eyes that regard Clarke with shrewd curiosity; the other, who looks older, has dark skin and a curling tattoo on her face, around one pair of hard eyes that stare at Clarke with a mix of animosity and distrust.

“Hello, Clarke.”

Her focus is pulled back to the Captain. She’s at a clear disadvantage, beside the obvious facts that she’s in a cell and her hands are bound (“preemptive measure,” the pirate explained when they closed the handcuffs around her wrists), she doesn’t know her captor’s name.

Clarke doesn’t answer; she just stands up, as smoothly as one can without the support of one’s hands, and stares right back into the Captain’s eye, chin raised.

Pirates respect strength and power. Clarke will show no weakness and will hold on to the thinnest thread of power she may have, which in this case is the right to engage with the Captain in whatever way she pleases.

What she doesn’t expect, however, is for the Captain to step inside the cell. The pirate lingers just inside, her feet barely past the threshold. Clarke figures she’s afraid of getting spat on again.

“You are not my prisoner, Clarke.”

She rolls her eyes. Right. The cell and the handcuffs must be just for show, then.

“If that’s true, then why am I wearing handcuffs?”

The pirate clenches her jaw, shifts it just slightly sideways, then returns it to its original position. Her glare is vicious, but Clarke doesn’t falter. She raises an eyebrow, daring her adversary to take the challenge.

The Captain hangs on to the stalwart confidence and aloofness that have branded her attitude so far. “Take the handcuffs off,” she orders.

The dark-skinned pirate steps towards Clarke and reaches for her hands, but she escapes the hold at the last moment. She fixes the Captain with a scowl.

“Take them off yourself.”

The Captain quirks an eyebrow, but waves her companion away, nonetheless. The steps she takes towards Clarke are measured, like she’s going through every possible scenario in her head and measuring what distance from Clarke would be best to stop at in order to avoid any other projectiles. The pirate stops a meagre foot away from Clarke, green eye cold and calculating.

The pirate’s intentions become apparent when Clarke has to hold a shudder at bay. This woman is formidable — she’s only marginally taller than Clarke, and slimmer too, but she dominates what little space she occupies with such intensity that it makes her seem bigger, taller, stronger. Clarke feels like she’s being pushed to a corner, when in reality she’s still standing in the middle of the room and the pirate isn’t even touching her.

And this girl can’t be much older than her, but everything about her feels ageless.

The Captain places the pad of her right index finger over the link of the cuffs and they open, freeing Clarke’s hands. As the blonde massages her sore wrists, the pirate hands the cuffs to her lackeys and takes a step back. Clarke feels like she can breathe better without the proximity. The Captain is the first to break the silence, her tone flat.

“Where are you from?”

For the first time, the urge to swallow gets the best of her. It hurts.

“Nowhere.”

The Captain’s tone grows marginally softer. It sounds almost reassuring when she says, “I am not going to hurt you, Clarke.”

Clarke presses her lips together; the last time she trusted a pirate without a trade-off she ended up in a very bad situation. She will not make that mistake again.

“You can trust that I won’t do anything untoward.”

Clarke scoffs. “Like what? Piracy? Forgive me for not giving a pirate’s word much value.”

“You would be surprised.”

“Why do you want to know where I’m from, anyway?”

The pirate frowns, as though the answer is obvious. “So I can take you back home.”

Memories of her parents, her brother, Wells jump to the forefront of Clarke’s mind and almost draw a “please” from her lips.

However, it’s also the memories of those she loves that remind her of why she’s doing it — it’s for them and the rest of her people, not for herself. So, she squares her shoulders and meets the pirate’s eye.

“Well, I don’t want to go home.”

She can feel the exasperation rolling off the pirate in waves and basks in it, letting it wash over her and give her strength. The one green eye seems to make an effort not to roll back in its socket. By what must surely be a gargantuan labor of restraint, the pirate preserves the almost indiscernible sliver of kindness in her voice.

“What is it you want, then?”

Clarke plays with the answer on the tip of her tongue, turns it around and over looking for the best way to release it into the air between them. In the end, she reckons it’s best to go straight to the point.

“I want to stay on your ship.”

Any remnants of softness vanish from the Captain’s expression.

“No. Absolutely not.”

The Captain heads back to the doorway and exits the cell. Before Clarke can interject, she ploughs on, “I have enough mouths to feed as it is, and you would only be a nuisance. The last thing I need is a landlubber on my ship.”

Clarke crosses her arms, for sure the picture of petulant obstinacy. And she knows she’s being difficult, ungrateful even, considering this pirate might have saved her — the jury’s still out on the veracity of the Captain’s claims — but it’s her people’s fate on the line and this is hardly the time for social decorum.

Besides, the Captain is annoying.

“I refuse to leave this ship.”

The Captain raises her chin and Clarke does her best not to cower under the glower the other woman levels her with. Having her arms crossed over her chest helps — they feel like a buffer between her and the withering intensity of that one-eyed stare.

“Congratulations, Clarke. You have just earned the right to be my prisoner.”

And with that, the door to her cell closes again and the Captain is nowhere to be seen.

* * *

“Thanks, Monroe. You’re the best.”

The kind pirate flashes Clarke a smile before handing her the small box through the laser bars. Apparently, the door keeping her enclosed can take several forms, according to what is most useful at any given moment. Clarke thanks Monroe one last time and watches them go as she opens the box with careful fingers. Inside, she finds a small slice of cake for her eyes and her taste buds — and her moody stomach — to feast on.

Life in the cell hasn’t been as hard as she expected. After about a week, she’s made friends with every pirate that guards her. They have brought her a more comfortable bed without her asking for it; they like to bring her treats from the kitchen and Monroe even went so far as to give her new clothes (the ones she’d left Phorcys with were… stinking, to say the least). Besides being grateful to her benefactors, Clarke also takes great pleasure in knowing that it annoys the Captain to no end — and she knows this because every two days someone else is assigned to her cell. They always come grudgingly, doing their best to be distant and brusque. After a few hours, they’re all smiles and blushes and nice words and apologies for their Captain.

Pirates may not be so bad after all. At least not the ones who pamper her.

It seems the Captain has had enough, however, for a few minutes later Clarke hears the telltale thump of her heavy boots. Clarke is still licking remnants of cake from her fingers when the door to her cell disappears and is replaced by the ever-unpleasant view of the Captain.

This time, she is accompanied by two hulking men: one with a shaved head and guarded eyes, and the other with a thick beard and blue tattoos on his face. The former looks like a normal human, unlike the latter. The man’s beard grows longer and shorter in tandem with his breathing and his tattoo glows a brilliant blue. Upon longer inspection, Clarke realizes that it’s actually a sort of window rather than a tattoo and beyond it she can see tiny sea creatures swimming. He is a Ny’, people whose bodies are whole ecosystems and house entire worlds within them. She knows without having to look that his eyes are as blue as the ocean he holds inside.

Despite the hulking, menacing figures of both men, none are quite as scary as the Captain, who has decided to shake things up a bit today. This time, her eye shines green and striking behind dark paint. It drapes over the eye and eyepatch like a strip of black fabric and runs down the girl’s cheeks in trios of streaks that look like tears, or as though the wild beasts which live in the Captain’s eyes are so powerful and untamable that they creep out, stretching their dark clawsdown the woman’s soft cheeks and turning them into tokens of their vicious bloodthirst.

Clarke carves half-moons into her palm to keep from flinching at the haunting sight.

“We are about to arrive at a new planet.” The Captain’s voice adopts the same bored cadence as in their previous interactions, with an undercurrent of power that once again has Clarke on edge. “We will drop you off and you can find your way home from there.”

Clarke remains steadfast, unmovable. “I’m not going. I told you, I don’t want to leave your ship and you can’t force me to go.”

"Yes, I can." The arrogant self-assuredness shining through the Captain's eyes prickles at her skin like long, sharp nails. It's equal parts chilling and nauseating. "I can also drag you kicking and screaming to our next stop and find someone who might recognize you, since you refuse to talk. Or, better yet, I could find someone to _make_ you talk."

"You wouldn't do that."

The sheer terror she's feeling must show in her face, for the Captain raises her chin, levelling Clarke with a challenge in her eye. Her words are slow, calculated. This is a woman of action, whose many silences speak with more power than her voice, giving whatever she says added value. Each word is spoken with careful clarity, rolled over in the pirate's mind several times before it rolls over her tongue, "Do you want to test that theory?"

There is nothing Clarke would love more than to call this woman’s bluff.

However, the thought of her parents, her brother, Wells — her people —keep her from doing it right away. On the one hand, she's pretty sure that this pirate is more bark than bite and wouldn't actually do "anything untoward", as the woman so elegantly put it a week ago. Her intentions don't seem to go beyond getting rid of Clarke.

On the other hand, Clarke doesn't want to be ridden of. And she also doesn't feel like pushing the rope too far. More bark than bite doesn't mean any biteat all — and she'd rather not find out what this pirate's boiling point is.

Besides, Clarke has her people to think of. She won't do anything that might jeopardize her plans.

She curses her luck; being kidnapped not only once, but twice, is blazing past karma and slamming headfirst into tragic misfortune. Clarke reckons she's just T-boned fate itself. This pirate crew may be much friendlier than the previous one, but that doesn't change the fact that they're still pirates, long coats and eyepatches included. And Clarke has no idea how they can possibly aid her in executing her plan.

Unless— _no_.

Well. Maybe?

No. She can't do it. It's too risky.

But it might be the only way.

This time, Clarke can't ignore the small voice in her head, screaming at her that it's the only way.

And damn it.

It just might be.

And she may have just come up with a terrible, _terrible_ plan.

Clarke gathers her bearings, draws in a breath and looks the Captain straight in the eye.

"I can offer you a deal."

The pirate’s eye remains cold and assessing, as though it's reading into Clarke's mind, but her voice gains a tone of finality when she states, "This is not a negotiation."

Clarke almost balks.

"Would you turn down the deal of your life for the sake of your pride?"

She wonders how one can look so relaxed — so _bored_ — and so stiff at the same time as the Captain does. It’s a look she seems to pull off effortlessly.

"I doubt you can offer me the deal of my life."

Clarke can't help being petty and using the Captain's words against her. "Wouldn't you like to test that theory?"

The Captain’s eye flashes with something primal. Something dangerous. It takes Clarke herculeaneffort not to take a step back at the menace written along the swirls of green and gray.

After long, silent seconds, Clarke realizes that the Captain is waiting for her to speak. She draws in a breath, gathers the courage to possibly make the biggest mistake of her life.

“I can help you find the greatest treasure you will ever get your hands on.”

As expected, this piques the Captain’s interest. If Clarke wasn’t tracking every shift in her facial expressions, she wouldn’t notice the way the brunette’s eye widens minutely, for not a second later the Captain goes back to oozing arrogant indifference.

“Again, I could simply find someone to get the location out of you.”

“You can’t, though.” Clarke smirks at the small victory. “I have no idea where the treasure is.”

The Captain stalks closer to her, teeth bared and eye flashing behind the face paint. “Explain.”

“I have a map, but you need me to open it. And to interpret it.” She takes a daring step closer to the Captain, looking more confident than she feels. The pirate’s nostrils flare at the unwanted proximity, but otherwise she doesn’t react. “If you want the treasure, you’ll have to take me with you. Anyway,” Clarke shrugs with genuine petulance and fabricated insouciance, “I doubt your crew would be too happy if they knew you’d turned down the chance to find a great treasure just because you didn’t want me on your ship.”

Their gazes remain locked for a few more still, charged moments. Clarke can almost hear the silence fizzing and crackling, like the rapidly burning wire of a sparkler.

All of a sudden, the Captain whips around and exits the cell, throwing a stilted command over her shoulder.

“Get an upper room ready. We have a new addition to our crew.”

* * *

It’s some time later when the bald man from earlier comes to fetch her from the cell and take her up to her room.

He’s a fine specimen. He towers over her, all muscles and glistening dark skin and tattoos wrapped around his arms and shoulders. A fading, buzz cut mohawk, she notices now, streaks up his bald head, and his beard is short but finely trimmed. For all his menacing looks, his eyes are gentle and map the way to a kind soul. This is a pirate who lives well, who’s happy.

It makes her wonder how stern the Captain’s leadership really is.

It’s a relief to cross the threshold without the impediment of the laser door. It feels like she’s breathing again. She takes a lungful of air; it breathes differently, freer.

Clarke takes in her surroundings as they stroll down halls and climb up stairs towards where she’ll be staying. The vintage motif remains — everything is wood, carved exquisitely and with care, with details chiseled in gold, as though the spacecraft has been built around the intact remains of a ship owned by pirates of the old age, those who sailed raging seas and slept in hammocks and drank full bottles of rum.

The narrower corridors are illuminated only by lanterns that hang from the beams above them. Wider spaces bring candles atop pedestals into the mix, although Clarke isn’t sure that such a system is practical — or even safe — when everything around them is made of wood. The few surfaces available are cluttered with books, maps and bric-a-brac, and there are barrels _everywhere_.

She doesn’t see a lot of people, but the ones she does look carefree, either resting, or playing games, or drink boisterously and laugh with heads thrown back and necks bared. She figures that the knowledge that they’re about to arrive at a new planet has settled the crew down and a self-assured tranquility has seeped into their bones, cajoling them into a sedate, pliable state.

At last, they reach a hall with doors on both sides. It’s a corridor like many others on the ship although something makes it look more opulent. She can’t put a finger on it, but this hall feels more _important_.

The man stops in front of a door and places an open hand on a pad next to it. The screen shines and circles appear around the pads of his fingers, before the door clicks, indicating it’s unlocked.

Before she can look, though, the bald man tugs on her shirt to pull her in front of the pad.

“Place your open palm on it,” he instructs.

Just like his eyes, his voice and manners are gentle. Although he speaks in hushed, soft tones like the Captain, and his voice is naturally lower, it carries none of the threats and subterfuge of his superior. He might be in charge of Clarke, but he isn’t someone who holds power in their hands. He’s not a living landmine, waiting with bated breath for Clarke to take the wrong step.

Clarke feels her back uncoil and her shoulders sag incrementally. For the first time since she woke up on this ship, she doesn’t feel like her every word, movement, and facial expression is being tracked, assessed, and indexed in someone’s mind for later review.

She does as he says, and circles appear around her digits, before the screen flashes blue twice.

“There. Now the only ones who can open that door are you, the Captain, and Raven,” he announces.

Clarke has half a mind to question why the Captain would be allowed in her quarters — or who that Raven person even is, and why would they be allowed in her room as well. However, since she’s going to be staying on this ship for a long time, she ought to start getting on the crew’s good side.

“Thanks,” she breathes, withdrawing her hand. “May I know your name?”

He nods, “Lincoln,” and extends his hand for her to take, which she does.

“Nice to meet you, Lincoln. I’m Clarke.”

He smiles kindly, with a curl of amusement. “I know. It’s getting late, now. You should get some sleep.”

He walks away after that, leaving her to stare listlessly at the door to her bedroom. So far, she’s been fighting her way through every hardship as though she were in a dream — whether such fantasy is good or badis yet to be determined. It’s like she’s turned all the mirrors around and strode past them, never chancing a look at herself. Everything has been so surreal that it doesn’t feel… true.

She hasn’t had a moment’s worth of proper rest; her adrenal medulla has been releasing adrenalineinto her bloodstream so steadily her veins might burst. She’s certainly high on it, riding its crest for so long she’s no longer sure her legs will hold up once she gets on steady ground. The moment the wave crashes on the rocks, this adrenaline-filled illusion will crash, too, and she’ll feel the true weight of every momentous decision she’s made so far. If she goes in, everything will be real.

She’s not sure she wants it to be.

No. She can’t think like that.

She’s made her decisions and she will own up to them. It was for her people. Everything she does. Everything she _is_ — it’s for them. Reality can crash down on her anytime. It will never be as heavy as her duty. She can shake off verisimilitude whenever she wants, pretend everything is lighter, easier than it actually is. But she can never shuck off the weight that sits on her shoulders or the braceletswrapped around her wrists. She can’t let go of what binds her, for she would be reneging who she is.

So she takes a deep breath and pushes the door open, ready to face every mirror.

A look inside the room and Clarke realizes why the hall looks so significant. Hers is not just a single room — it’s a _guest_ room. Stepping inside and casting her eyes over rich linens, golden candle sconces, and a beautifully crafted desk, it dawns on her that such profligate display of wealth is meant to intimidate whoever steps into the room.

This is an extravagant guest room in a pirate ship. It’s not hard to guess how all those riches have been acquired. It sends a very clear message: a wealthy pirate is a powerful pirate. They who dare defy them will be in deep trouble.

The message applies to her, too.

She’s past caring, though, at least for today.

Despite its opulence and size, the outline of the room is fairly simple. There is a bed on the right corner closest to the door, with a chest at its feet. To the left, a door to what may be the bathroom, and a cozy-looking armchair and a small sidetable. There is a large window opposite the door, although the blinds are shut at this late hour. Were they open, the light would drape over the desk and chair, which sit facing her. There is a bookshelf in the far-left corner, whereas several candles burn placidly on a stone plinth in the far-right one. Which is unnecessary, Clarke thinks, considering that there are — one, two, three, four, five, _six_ candle sconces on the walls, more than enough to illuminate the whole area.

Whoever decorated this bedroom must be very fond of candles.

As she closes the door, Clarke notices there is a screen attached to it. It’s as long as her arm and fills up almost the whole width of the door. Must be the control panel. She’ll tinker with it tomorrow. Just as she’s about to turn, however, she catches sight of her reflection on the dark surface.

She looks… ragged.

There’s a cut on her forehead. It’s healing nicely — they must have treated it while she was unconscious. Her hair is an unruly mop and there are deep, dark bags under her eyes, which shine a dull blue. It’s a far cry from the face she was used to looking at in Phorcys. It feels like she’s staring at a different person altogether. As though the person looking back at her is a complete stranger.

It’s a striking realization, such that it hurts to keep locking eyes with the broken girl in the mirror. Her gaze snaps left, eager to avoid it, and lands on the bed.

Suddenly, she feels drained. Exhaustion takes over her body, adding weight to her blood, her muscles, and her bones. Her mind barely has enough energy to process coherent thought.

The last thing Clarke remembers is sinking into bed, before falling asleep and giving in to swirling, messy dreams of duty, treasures, treason, and a disconcerting green eye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's shorter than I wanted, but I wanted to post it soon so I decided to cut it here. More will follow soon :)
> 
> This wasn't posted yesterday because I couldn't find the right word to fit a sentence. Yes, just one word. So thank you to dreamsaremywords for helping me find it. If it was the wrong word, it's her fault 😁
> 
> Above all, thank you to my wonderful beta, booksmusicandtheatre, for making me look good.
> 
> Thank you for your comments on the first chapter, you have no idea how much they help to keep me motivated to write more and faster and keep the intervals between updates relatively short ❤️
> 
> Oh and come talk to me on Tumblr at @100hearteyes! I love screaming and headcanonning about my own fic.
> 
> (a month can be considered relatively short right?)


	3. it's a wonderful life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW (WITH SPOILER): Lexa does something stupid (fakes a Russian roulette). Please read with caution.

_Though my good days are far gone_

_They'll surely come back one morn_

_So I won't complain_

-Benjamin Clementine

(I Won’t Complain)

* * *

When she hears the door of her room open, Clarke tries to convince herself that it isn’t real, it’s just a remnant of her dreams. No such luck.

“Guest room honors. I wonder what you’ve done to deserve it.”

Clarke opens her eyes with a groan. She has been awake for some time, chasing thoughts of duty and treasures and failure away, and rising on the tippy toes of her mind to reach for calmer, emptier thoughts to keep her entertained during the stretching, limbo-like moments between awaking and sweeping the lingering cobwebs of sleep away from her eyes.

Her legs feel like lead when she pushes the comforter from her body and places one foot on the floor, then the other.

“I’m Raven. I’ll be showing you around the ship.”

So _this_ is Raven, Clarke thinks as her eyes adjust to the light and she takes the girl in for the first time. She’s one of the two women who accompanied the Captain to her cell the first time; the one with the curious, clever eyes.

Raven extends her hand and Clarke takes it groggily as she assesses the girl. She can see there’s taut muscle rippling underneath the soft skin and the confident way she holds herself tells Clarke she’s some sort of authority figure on the ship. Still, there is something… something _soft_ , if that is even the right word, about her that doesn’t lend itself to a life of piracy.

“You… you don’t look like a pirate.”

Raven seems torn between being offended or amused. The smirk that burgeons on her lips a second later tells Clarke she’s chosen the latter. “What, should I have a gold tooth and an eyepatch to look like one?”

The mental image of a gold tooth on a different set of teeth makes her frown and her nose wrinkles with disgust. “Does the Captain have a gold tooth?”

Raven huffs out a laugh. “No.” Then she crosses her arms and leans on the doorframe, tilts her head like she’s thinking about it. “But I wouldn’t be surprised if she were planning on getting one. She would _love_ to look like the full-fledged, quintessential pirate.”

Clarke can’t even begin to comprehend all the words coming out of the girl’s mouth.

“So… You’re going to be my tour guide.”

“Yep,” Raven says, popping the ‘p’.

“And you had to break into my room and wake me up for that?”

Raven shrugs like Clarke is asking an absurd question. “If you’re part of the crew, you follow our rules. And we like to wake up early.”

“Fine… I guess.”

Their first stop is the mess hall. There are three rows of four tables, enough to sit over seventy people. They're mostly empty and Clarke guesses it's because most of the crew is already at work.

She takes a peek at people's meals. Everyone without exception is eating a cereal mix with silen milk — she can tell it's from the goat-like, albeit bigger, animal native of the rogue planet Pan from its slightly pinkish color (it has to do with its properties, which make it the healthiest, most nutritious milk there is as well as easily stored, and it can last for ages. Clarke isn't surprised to see it's part of the pirates' diet). Some of them eat a kind of defrosted bread (the only way for it to last on the ship) and the majority drink a blue juice that Clarke can't help wrinkling her nose at. It's a hefty breakfast, obviously meant to energize them for the whole day.

Clarke’s stomach growls, but before she can sit down, Raven steals a chunky piece of bread from a fellow crew member and hands it to Clarke and grabs her wrist and pulls her towards a new destination.

As Clarke chews on the bread, Raven shows her the crew’s quarters — a big room with bunk beds all over, enough for over fifty people — the stores, the captain’s room, the ship’s many stores (food, water and beer, ammo, mechanical, spare sails, and ropes), and the bilges, where all the machines keeping the ship in the air (Raven’s words) hum away, the galleys, and several other rooms Clarke can’t memorize the name of. The decorative theme doesn’t change — everything is wood and gold, and it feels straight out of the tales of pirates from the old age. The few hints of technology — a control panel here, a whirring machine there — don’t distract from the vintage feel of it all. They somehow add to it, like the juxtaposition is needed so the overarching theme isn’t so heavily laid that it feels fake or corny.

They end up in a long corridor decorated more richly than anything she has seen on the ship so far — and most of the streets of Arkadia.

“This is the Masters’ cabin,” Raven explains as she passes several doors and jerks her thumb at them, “Indra is the Gunner, Octavia is Sailing Master, Lincoln is the Boatswain, Nyko is the Surgeon, and Luna is Master Cook.”

“What about you?” Clarke asks, then remembers someone else. “And the Captain?”

Raven puffs her chest, a smug smile playing at the ends of her lips.

“I’m the Quartermaster, so I have the biggest room, at the end of the hall. The Captain’s quarters are only accessible through the quarterdeck.”

Now she knows what area of the ship to avoid.

“Okay,” Raven claps her hands, rubs them together, “All that’s left now are the decks.”

Raven opens the door at the very end of the hall and climbs the short steps that lead outside. Then she stands to the side, waiting for Clarke to do the same.

She freezes the moment she steps outside.

Understanding and even more confusion crash into her like a tidal wave. The ship looks like an ancient pirate vessel on the inside because it _is_ one. But it _flies_ , so it can’t be — Clarke has never seen — she has never seen anything like _this_.

It’s like an ancient galleon, like those that belonged to the Portuguese or Spanish, except — and Clarke knows she’s already said this, but it can’t be said enough — it _flies_.

In _outer space_.

The sails look like wings of a dragon, red and angular and aerodynamic. Clarke spends enough time looking at them to realize that they’re made of hundreds of small, octagonal panels rather than cloth. Above them, Jolly Roger waves proudly. Other than that, from the main deck, where they stand, to the forecastle and the quarterdeck and the poop deck and the stern, it looks exactly like an ancient pirate ship.

And the view—

Oh, the _view_.

Clarke has seen space from the windows of several ships before, but there is something about the unimpeded view, about there being nothing between her eyes and the sight of galaxies, nebulae, planets, and stars, that makes it the most breathtaking she has ever seen.

It’s… wondrous. Magnificent. Awe-inspiring. Extraordinary. Clarke could find a million words to describe it and still they wouldn’t be enough. No words can ever be enough for the splendor of space or the immensity of emotions that it draws forth, such that her eyes fill with tears for no reason other than, “It’s beautiful.”

“Yeah,” Raven sighs, showing up at her side. There is a longing in her voice, a yearning for what she already has. Like she’s afraid that one day she might not have it anymore, and she’s feeling _saudade_ in anticipation. “Hands down the best part about being a pirate.”

Clarke is almost afraid coming here too often, lest her eyes grow used to the view. That would be a crime.

Feeling like a child in an amusement park, Clarke takes off towards the forecastle, forgetting all about her tired legs, and leans over the prow, hands fastened on the bowsprit, hovering over the rail and basking in the appearance of complete freedom. She feels more alive than she has felt for weeks, _months_ even. Maybe ever.

“How do we even breathe out here?” she asks Raven, who is once again next to her.

“The ship has its own artificial atmosphere. You can breathe just fine as long as you’re within the perimeter. Courtesy of yours truly,” Raven adds with a wink.

“And where are we?”

Raven points at a nebula, circular and blue, with a dark spot in the middle. “See that? That’s the Eye of Poseidon. We’re going to land there,” she shifts to a nearby planet, blue and green with beautiful cream-colored rings around it. “It’s called Lemuria. It’s a well-known pirate haven and trading post. Lexa’s pretty popular there, too.”

Raven’s chuckle piques Clarke’s curiosity and she has half a mind to ask who _Lexa_ is, but something else catches her eye. Below them, the figurehead is shaped like a panther, teeth bared in a growl and claws extended menacingly. As on the inside, every accent on the ship is layered in gold, making for a striking contrast against the deep maroon of the wood. Or what looks like wood, for Clarke doubts that the actual thing could withstand the strain of space traveling.

Space is pitch-black, despite the millions of stars that speckle it, but several light fixtures and candles provide enough light to replicate the early morning sun. Clarke suspects that the lighting adjusts to the time of day to keep sleeping cycles regular and to help the crew adapt to life on deck. She can’t wait to know what it looks like at night.

“What’s the ship called?”

“ _Deimeikola Ripa_ ,” Raven answers in a foreign, curling language, as her fingers trace the streaks and knots on the bannister. “The Golden Panther. We have other ships on our fleet, but this is the one I like best.”

“It is beautiful,” Clarke agrees.

Raven lets her enjoy the view for a few minutes longer. To her surprise, the more she looks, the more enamored she becomes with space. The stars are vain, legitimately so. Those already out in the open shine brighter and more proudly the longer they’re admired for. The others, seeing Clarke’s unwavering attention on their sisters, peek out from under the hood of the sky and show that they, too, can shine so radiantly that their light bleeds into the gloom of space and stains it in shades of purple and gray. So she keeps looking and looking, letting her eyes arrange the stars with their gaze.

It’s after long minutes of staring at the ever-changing patterns around them that Raven lays a hand on Clarke’s shoulder, pulling her attention from her study of celestial bodies and phenomena back to the mundanity of human beings and their handy work. Except this ship is anything but mundane.

“What are we seeing now?”

Raven’s smirk breaks her out of the daze she was still in after stargazing.

“The Captain.”

Clarke tries to ready herself mentally for the meeting as she and Raven head to the quarterdeck. The Quartermaster knocks on the door right at the center of the farthest wall and when a faint ‘come in’ travels from the other side, Raven opens the door and holds it for her, but doesn’t go inside.

Off Clarke’s confused look, the brunette shrugs and explains, “She’s already expecting you.”

Great.

She psyches herself up for it, gives herself a little pep talk and a mental pat on the back for further encouragement. A deep breath in, then out, and a nod, and she’s ready to step inside.

* * *

When what was left of Humanity on Earth had to leave (most people had already moved to other planets by then), given that their original home no longer provided the necessary resources to sustain life, it was all very sudden and poorly planned. People weren't allowed to take anything with them, there just wasn't enough time, so everything they had was left behind to die along with the planet. Pets not included.

That meant that when they settled at their new planet, they had no values to trade and no sustenance other than what their new home gave them, which wasn't much. The charity of those who already inhabited the planet solved the problem quickly, but the lesson was learned.

The king of Phorcys of that time had gotten wind of the story and taken a valuable lesson from it. He decided to gather the royal family's treasure as well as a percentage of the yearly taxes and store it somewhere only a royal would find, so that if something ever happened — a catastrophe, an invasion, a war, whatever may put Phorcys in danger —, his people would have something to fall back on.

Over the generations, the assembly of the savings of the people of Phorcys became so large it needed a planet of its own. It became the royal family's greatest responsibility, besides taking care of their people, to guard the secret of its location with their lives, in order to keep the fortune hidden and safe from thieves, ready to be used when Phorcys most needed.

And now, Clarke is going to help a pirate steal it.

She finds the Captain hunched over a table full of maps and a drafting compass, along with other measuring instruments, a magnifying glass, and a pistol. Clarke averts her eyes and they land on a dagger instead, the tip embedded into the hard wood. She tries not to think about the fact that the Captain has two weapons at her disposal in case she decides that Clarke isn’t worth the hassle. Instead, she clears her throat, eager to get this meeting over with.

The Captain straightens her back and turns around, displeasure written all over her face, which is now – thankfully – void of the scary face paint, although her hair is still pulled back in braids. The Captain’s annoyance is probably at the fact that Clarke interrupted her, something she’s clearly not used to, or maybe just at Clarke in general. Either way, the blonde doesn’t let it affect her (too much).

“Hello, Clarke.”

Clarke nods her greeting. “Captain.”

This part of the Captain’s quarters is nothing short of luxurious. The table over which the woman was leaning is round and placed right at the center. There isn’t an inch of wall left uncovered — maps, paintings, tapestries, and candle sconces (candles seem to be a running theme on this ship) fill the length of every one of the four red walls. Other than the table, there is a desk and chair set as well as a bureau and several bookshelves littered with books, yes, but also what Clarke guesses are trinkets and mementos from the pirate’s travels. Despite the luxury, Clarke can see that the Captain also values comfort, judging by the couch pushed up against the wall and the cozy, red blanket that rests on it, along with — is that a stuffed raccoon? Why does the Captain have a stuffed raccoon on her couch? And it _is_ a plushie, right? Surely, it wouldn’t be an actual— Clarke shakes it off and focuses on the couple of doors on the far wall. One must lead to the Captain’s bedroom, the other maybe to the bathroom.

She focuses back on the Captain and lets the silence stretch between them until the brunette has no option but to break it herself.

“I called you here to discuss the treasure and how to find it.”

It’s not like she didn’t expect it — she did, of course; in fact, she expected nothing else —, but it leaves her breathless, nervous, wishing she could wipe her now sweating palms on her pants, nonetheless.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that she’s about to commit high treason.

Nails digging into palms, she steels herself and holds the Captain’s hard stare, letting go only once she’s made it clear that she won’t be pushed around by a pirate. These are her treasure, her map, and her terms.

Clarke crosses her arms like she’s holding each forearm with the other hand, but instead, she keeps her fingers stretched, one hand facing up and the other turned down, feeling the pulse points of her wrists on the heels of her hands. The pads of all her fingers rest on the cold surface of her gold cuffs.

 _Click_.

She untangles her arms and smiles when she sees that the hidden compartment in the cuff of her right hand is unlocked. She pries the lid open and pulls out a flat, colorful circle, surrounded by a thicker silver ring.

She closes her fist around the circle and then opens it in front of her, level with her chest.

“ _Alta sententia_.”

The circle shines and whirs, as though cogs are turning inside, starts to expand in every direction, until it’s a fully formed sphere of swirling colors and shiny freckles. The ring around it has also changed, now several thin branches with small globes along them that make the whole set look like a star system.

When Clarke raises her gaze to meet the Captain’s, the brunette’s one eye is wide, and her lips are parted in something akin to awe. It’s the most expression she’s seen on the pirate’s face since they first met.

The Captain snaps her mouth closed, her lips now pursed, but her eye remains bulging. She points a bony finger at the sphere in Clarke’s hand.

“How did that happen?”

Clarke quirks an eyebrow. “Technology.”

She takes devilish pleasure from the Captain’s subsequent eye roll. Despite the lingering tension, this feels like their lightest interaction yet. It doesn’t leave her as on edge as the previous three times they talked did.

“All that was needed was your fingertips and your voice,” the Captain states more than asks.

“Yes.”

The corners of the Captain’s lips turn down like a frown. “I could have just forced the information out of you after all.”

Clarke doesn’t bother hiding a self-assured smirk. “I know you were bluffing.”

The Captain cocks an aggravated eyebrow, but Clarke just shrugs, preferring to keep it to herself that she _would_ have been needed regardless since the map has been programmed to respond only to her voice and detect stress levels. The Captain only needs to know what she needs to know.

The map, she realizes, isn’t really a map. The treasure is a shiny dot in the middle and around it are several astronomical objects that Clarke supposes are meant to help in identifying the location. Her confusion must be evident, for the Captain extends her hand gingerly for the orb.

“May I?”

It takes physical effort to hand over the sphere. She places it carefully on the Captain’s open palm and the other woman examines it closely, turning it over in her hand before picking it up with the other between gentle fingers. It’s weird, how very delicate her grip is, when she’s such a whirlwind of power and brutality.

The Captain hums and pokes a tentative finger into the orb. Clarke is about to berate her for her carelessness when a beam bursts forth and spreads into a holographic representation of the image inside the orb. The Captain’s surprise is such that she almost drops the heirloom.

Which would be funny, if it weren’t Clarke’s heirloom.

“Put it on the table! On the table!

The Captain is quick to adjust her grip and turn around to place it on the table. The hologram is now at face level and the pirate walks around it, chin propped on her closed fist and the belonging elbow resting on the back of her other hand. She looks like a predator circling its prey.

“Much better,” hums the Captain, eye moving fast and taking in every detail. Clarke should be doing that, too, but she finds her eyes stuck on the pirate’s eyepatch.

“Doesn’t having only one eye affect your balance?” she blurts and regrets it immediately. “I me—"

“It used to,” the Captain mutters absently, gaze still peering into every detail on the map. “Not anymore.”

They fall silent for a few minutes, both studying the map — or whatever it should be named, since it _isn’t_ a map, not really. If she’s being honest, Clarke has no idea what she’s looking at. Obviously, it’s the location of the treasure, but _where_ is it? She doesn’t recognize any of the surrounding constellations and planets. Although, to be, once more, perfectly honest, Clarke’s knowledge of the universe outside her comfort zone is pretty limited. So she’s not too worried that she has no idea what she’s looking at, because the Captain is now surveying the actual maps on the table, running a finger over each drawn line and whispering written names to herself, and surely she will—

“I have no idea what I’m looking at.”

Well.

Before Clarke can say anything, the Captain has already turned around, long coat swooshing around her feet, and started rummaging through the maps piled on the bureau. She turns around and sets a heavy, patterned metal cube on the table.

“This is a map of the known universe,” the Captain says, pressing a circle at the top of the cube. It thrums before projecting four holographic images of spheres. Great. More balls. “The universe keeps expanding, of course, but assuming that your treasure is older than fifty years, we should be fine. Besides, this is extremely interactive, which allows us to find whatever we are looking for in a matter of minutes.”

“Why don’t you use it all the time though?”

The Captain frowns at her, a mix of offense and confusion knitting her brows together. “It would take away from the essence of being a pirate.”

Clarke tries not to roll her eyes too hard.

“Anyway,” she redirects, “can you find it then?”

In lieu of replying, the Captain sweeps away three of the five globes, causing them to disappear, and places the fourth one on the table for later. Clarke hears her mutter something like ‘let’s start with this one’ and then she does _something_ that sort of causes the sphere to explode and its contents to scatter all around them. Except they’re not scattered: they are now a map that takes over the whole room, with holographic stars and comets and belts and planets and nebulae shining everywhere Clarke looks.

“We are looking for a planet orbiting a white dwarf in a spiral galaxy with two nebulae nearby and—” the Captain’s eye widens. “Oh, no.”

Clarke looks on, completely lost, as the Captain zooms on a specific galaxy — a spiral, like she said — and keeps talking gibberish under her breath. “What?”

“It is possible, but that would be—”

“What?”

The Captain makes a wide, vertical movement with her arms and everything but the area she’s inspecting disappears. She zooms closer and her breath hitches. “It is.”

Before Clarke can snap another ‘what’ at her, the Captain turns to her with a frown.

“Come see this, Clarke.”

Clarke walks up to the Captain and focuses on what she’s looking at. She sees nothing that could have triggered such an epiphany, other than the fact that yes, it looks like the location on her map.

“Do you recognize this?”

She shakes her head negatively, still not sure of what she’s even looking at. The Captain almost smirks (it’s that thing where she leers with her eye more than her lips, whichis so haughty and so vexing, but it isn’t mean). It’s more like she’s about to let Clarke in on a great secret. The pirate heads to one of the bookshelves at the other end of the room and comes back with a book, which she thumbs through at until finding the page she’s looking for and, despite her urgency, places face-up on the table, turning it so Clarke can see it better.

“Do you recognize it now?”

And— yes. In spite of some differences, it _is_ the same image. The star has shrunk into a white dwarf and most of the planets no longer exist, for various reasons. And right in the middle of the inner rim, green and blue like in the books, is the planet they’re looking for.

Earth.

* * *

“It’s not planet Earth.”

Clarke’s attention is drawn back to the Captain, whose voice is back to its usual, controlled cadence. With her hands linked behind her back and a rigid posture, the Captain is back to looking every bit the regal asshole Clarke is used to seeing.

“Remember what happened to Earth?”

Clarke fetches her history books from her memory and sifts through the pages, until she lands on the chapter about Earth. She feels like a teenager again, middle and index fingers of her left hand underlining the words as she read them, fascination thundering through her beating heart as she learned of civilizations past and the beginnings of a new age, of the incident that catalyzed the sequence of events that has brought her to this very moment.

“Humanity found a way to harvest hydrogen and helium from the Sun. But we soon got greedy, as we always do, and sucked it all out, which triggered the Sun’s premature transformation into a red giant,” Clarke recalls, reading the words of her memory’s pictures as though they were right in front of her eyes. “However, there was no helium left to burn, so instead of expanding, the Sun succumbed to gravity and the core contracted, which caused a release of energy that made the envelope of the star expand and,” her eyes widen and she feels her lips form an ‘oh’ of understanding, and her next words are slow, like she’s processing the newly recovered memories, “it basically incinerated the Earth.”

“Yes.” The Captain nods, stepping up to the table and clicking the button at the top of the metal cube again. The map is sucked back into the cube and the pirate diverts her attention to the orb’s holographic projection. “What little was left of Humanity on Earth fled the moment they realized what was going to happen. The Sun continued to blow all its outer layers off until all that was left was the core, becoming a white dwarf, and a surrounding shell of gas that humans used to call a planetary nebula. By then, the Earth had already disintegrated under the force of the Sun’s expansion and the highly radioactive waves of energy it released. What should have taken billions of years to happen lasted only a few decades. Once again, Humanity had shown its ugliest side. It’s no wonder that no one ever looked back.”

It’s genius, Clarke sees now. Creating a planet where no one would ever think to look for it, because _everyone knows there’s nothing there_.

She glances at the Captain, whose attention is solely on the map, frowning with both her brow and her lips, which accents the elegant slope of her nose. Clarke can almost see the cogs turning in the pirate’s head, devising some plan to get to a treasure which, according to her calculations, must be over a hundred gigaparsecs away. Because parsecs are a unit of measurement, not time, contrary to what some people think. Her focus is pulled back to the Captain at the sound of a pensive hum.

“So… What do we do now?”

The Captain turns to Clarke as though she only just remembered that she was there too. “We set a course for Laniakea,” states the pirate, with a decisive nod. “The best way there should be through the Strait of Baawicky, it’s both the fastest and safest option. Then we decide how to go from there. But first, we replenish our stores at Lemuria. We arrive tomorrow morning.”

“What do I do in the meantime?”

“You can have the day to explore and,” the Captain furrows her nose, “maybe take a shower.”

Clarke scoffs, all but ready to remind the unnerving pirate that she was stuck in a cell for over a _week_ because _someone_ decided to play tyrant, and then she was mercilessly ripped from the comfort of her bed, so it’s not like she’s had a chance to shower, thank you very much, when the Captain interrupts her inner, about to be outer diatribe with a much more difficult question.

“Can you fight?”

Clarke debates for a moment whether it would be wiser to lie or tell the truth. “No,” she decides, hoping it was the right choice.

The Captain nods wordlessly, giving no hint of a reaction to Clarke’s reply.

“You can leave now. I will instruct Raven to leave a fresh change of clothes on your bed while you shower. Tomorrow we shall find you enough clothes to stock up the chest in your quarters.”

Clarke nods back and strides over to the table to take the orb with her. Out of the corner of her eyes she can see the Captain’s fingers flexing, as though she wishes to stop her from taking it, but in the end there is no further reaction and Clarke gets to walk out unscathed and with what’s rightfully hers firmly grasped in her palm.

The walk back to her quarters is a leisure one, paused only to look at the sky for a few more minutes. She has to convince herself to tear her eyes away from the view and keep walking. With a view like this, she could get used to life on a pirate ship.

With more time to spare, Clarke notices things she didn’t before. She notices that all the pirates except the Captain wear a sash around their waists and they appear to be color-coded. Raven wears a black one; she remembers Lincoln wearing orange; the people who mill about in the mess hall long after meal hours wear a yellow sash; she’s seen blue and green sashes around, too; and if she remembers correctly, the other woman who visited her cell with the Captain — the ferocious looking one — was wearing a blood red sash.

It wasn’t like that in Phorcys. The members of the royal family were the only ones who wore purple, but other than that, also due to the slight social and economic disparities between classes, everyone dressed in the same robes of white and gold, with the occasional blue for contrast.

Clarke remembers when she was fifteen and decided that she was over wearing white and gold and decided to throw on some blacks and greens and reds instead. A short, undercover walk along the streets of Arkadia turned into a staring show fairly quickly and Clarke had never felt so out of place. She stood out like a sore thumb among the monochromatic crowd. Weeks later, when she walked the same streets, draped in white and gold but with a tiara on top of her head, the wide-eyed stares returned, although for different reasons. She realized, then, that was to be her life as queen, occasional bouts of teenage rebellion notwithstanding. That was what she had been brought up to be, for the simple reason that she was her mother’s daughter. And she never really had a say in the matter.

She was always the center of attention. Now, striding along the poop deck towards her quarters, not a single head turns her away. It’s liberating, in a way.

Without her noticing, the morning has long since turned into day and is now starting to seep into late afternoon. Clarke is admittedly eager to learn more about life as a pirate, at least the nice parts. She’ll leave the killing and looting for the rest of the crew.

When she gets to her cabin, the first thing she does is place the sphere on the side table. Then, she sheds all the layers of dirty, stinky clothes from her body and boots up the control panel on the back of her door. It comes to life almost instantaneously and Clarke thumbs and jabs away in exploration, looking for something that might have to do with showering. She finds it after some prodding and sets her preferred settings, before pressing ‘start’ and heading to the bathroom. The water is already running in the tub shower combo when she climbs in.

Stepping under the spray feels like coming home. She stays there, doing nothing, for a while, watching as the water coming off her body goes from brown to transparent as minutes pass. She finds the soap and shampoo in duly labelled dispensers next to the showerhead and gets to work in dawdling, sedate movements, pretending even if just for the duration of this shower that she hasn’t got a care in the world.

Even after she’s washed herself, Clarke stays in the shower until every inch of her skin is pruney. She declines the offer from the screen in her shower for automatic drying and steps out and takes a towel from the rack, enveloping it around her body for warmth and comfort. She tightens the wrapping for a moment, feeling her muscles contract and extend with it, and then starts drying her hair and skin, smoothing the wrinkles over with each pass and dab of the fluffy towel and doing her best to ignore the fading black spots, battle scars she still carries from her imprisonment on Quint’s ship.

Clarke comes out of the bathroom to find the clean change of clothes she was promised but doesn’t put them on right away. Instead, she looks around the room, taking everything in. She’s on a pirate ship. She’s pretty sure that she can call herself a pirate by now — anyone who isn’t aware of her real identity would tag her as such. Princess turned pirate tries to steal her people’s savings. That sounds like the premise for a piece of cheesy fiction.

Raven opened the blinds when she came to her room to deliver the clothes, so now Clarke can look out the window and enjoy the view without having to go up to the deck and looking like a starstruck idiot. Which she is, but that’s not the point. Her calculations tell her that she’s close enough to see the lights on deck; she doesn’t, so they’ve turned them off already. Clarke hums in surprise. She must have been in the shower for even longer than she thought.

Feeling drained all of a sudden, she decides to forego clothes altogether and climbs into bed. The temperature in the cabin adjusts to her state of undress and she breathes in a deep, content sigh. It takes her only a few minutes to fall asleep.

* * *

A shrill sound rips Clarke from her dreams, causing her to jerk into a sitting position, utterly lost and looking for enemies around her. She thought she was past waking up not knowing where she is, but all it took was a shrieking alarm to take her back to last week, when she was still a prisoner in Quint’s ship.

It takes her a few seconds of covering her ears to escape the sound to realize that Raven must have set an alarm for this morning, so she would wake up on time. She curses the Quartermaster under her breath and uncovers her ears, flinching at the sheer volume of the alarm.

Clarke can’t hold the sigh of relief that finds its way out when she finally, _finally_ manages to turn the damn thing off.

She arrives at the mess hall already in the clothes Raven got her and the whole room quiets down when she comes in. It’s overwhelming, to say the least, so when she spots a familiar face, she walks quickly towards them: Monroe, whom she knows from the last few days she spent in the cell. They introduce her to Lincoln, her guide from her first night out of “prison”, who smiles at her affably; Octavia, Sailing Master and Lincoln’s girlfriend (much to Clarke’s disappointment), is a bit intense, but after meeting the Captain, Clarke is hardly intimidated; Bellamy is Octavia’s half-brother and works in artillery, yet unlike his sister he looks very unkempt, unclean even (has he showered at all in the last three months?); Monty helps Raven with all the technology on the ship, although Clarke can’t really get any more details about his job, because she doesn’t understand half of the technical jargon coming out of his mouth.

Still, in spite of their general friendliness, breakfast with the crew is a weird affair. She doesn’t know them, they don’t know her, and neither of them, despite Clarke’s best efforts (which, admittedly, are not that great), seem to go out of their way to change that. It’s as if they expect her to leave soon, so there’s no reason to create bonds.

Clarke doesn’t judge them. That _is_ the plan, after all.

Once breakfast is over, they invite her to come with them to visit Biringan, the capital of Lemuria, where the ship has landed. She accepts it, thankful that they’re at least making an effort to help her fit in, even if the sentiment doesn’t go beyond that.

However, as soon they step out onto the main deck, a voice stops her.

“Are you Clarke?”

She whirls around to find a man around her age with brown hair, blue eyes, and a slouchy figure. He moves and talks like he’s dying of boredom and Clarke can’t say she warms up to him at first sight.

“Yeah, that’s me. Why?”

He shoves a bucket and a mop into her hands. “You’re on mopping duty,” he drawls. “Congratulations.”

 _What_.

Before he can turn on his heels, Clarke manages to grab at his shirt between holding the bucket and the mop in her arms, effectively stopping him in his tracks.

“What do you mean, I’m on mopping duty?”

His eye roll might just be big enough to orbit Lemuria. “Mop, water, floors,” he points. “Do I need to show you how it’s done?”

By now, Clarke has stopped paying attention; her loud, angry heartbeat is thumping in her ears, fostering her righteous rage. She balls her hands into fists and takes off stomping towards the quarter deck, careful not to drop anything.

Oh, she has _words_ for that woman.

She doesn’t bother knocking on the Captain’s door, choosing instead to just storm in. She finds the woman once again pouring over the maps on the table — the same over which Clarke drops the bucket and mop. It’s effective in getting the Captain’s attention, although Clarke would rather not be on the pointy end of that piercing glare. However, she lets her fury push forward and feels powerful again.

“What the hell is this?”

The Captain takes in the couple of objects Clarke dropped on her table and her stare goes from hard to something more jovial. “A mop and a bucket.”

Clarke can’t say if she’s imagining it when one corner of those full lips as tilted into a barely-there… smirk? No. That would be impossible. The Captain is most likely incapable of humor.

“People use it for mopping the floors, as the name might indicate. I want them spotless,” the Captain adds, and yes, Clarke is pretty sure that the aggravating woman is smirking. It’s an odd sight.

“I know what they’re for,” she snaps. “Why were they given to me?”

At that, the Captain’s gaze hardens again, and Clarke can almost see the walls sliding back up. The menacing woman takes a measured step towards her.

“Did you think you could get a free ride as well as a share of the treasure, and do nothing?”

Okay, good point, “But— Can’t you give me something more… I don’t know… dignified?”

Clarke grimaces at her own choice of words. Predictably, if the Captain’s scowl was menacing before, now it’s a point-blank death threat.

“Everyone does their part around here, Clarke, and all jobs are dignified. Everyone serves a purpose, and so will you. There are no exceptions. Besides, please enlighten me: can you read the stars? Can you ride the ship? Can you cook?”

Clarke knows there are a few points she could raise, but they are all moot. Essentially, this is about being part of being part of a group and making herself useful within it. If an oar is moving out of sync, or not moving at all, then the boat will lose speed and even stability. This isn’t an old pirate ship, not exactly, but the allegory still applies. Maybe she could argue that she’s already contributing by guiding them to the treasure, but that was _her_ bargaining chip in the first place. Moreover, housing and feeding a parasite for months can’t be too pleasing.

Ultimately, it’s the thought of doing _nothing_ for the duration of their trip that tips the scales and causes her to sigh and shake her head. It isn’t easy, but she can admit when she’s wrong.

Well. Partially wrong, Clarke decides, when she looks up at the Captain and notices that stupidly well sculpted eyebrow raised in a tacit ‘there you go’.

Only slightly wrong, she amends, when the Captain tacks on with,

“Then mop.”

* * *

Clarke mops.

She mops and mops and _mops_ , frustrated and furious with the Captain, albeit slightly ashamed of herself (what was she _thinking_ , saying mopping isn’t dignified?), until the floors are pristine.

She also grumbles, curses the Captain under her breath, and maybe — just maybe — leaves a few dirty spots here and there next to her quarters just to spite the irksome pirate.

Sue her.

She mops until night has fallen and the very last member of the crew has returned to the ship, the Captain (who left for Biringan shortly after their heated discussion) included. And she mops a bit more after that, making sure to bump the mop against the Captain’s door a few times just to annoy her and maybe, if she’s lucky, delay her sleep for a little while.

Sue her twice.

She mops until she can’t feel her arms anymore and exhaustion has tied its ropes around her and started dragging her down. It slows her steps and curbs her movements, wrapping soft, though unyielding, hands around her legs and arms and shoulders, beckoning her back to bed.

Clarke yields, stowing her sword and shield away in a storing room, and follows the thread of her sleepy mind towards her room, weaving the yarn back together with each sluggish step. It’s fully woven by the time she slips under the covers, coiling it more tightly with a yawn, and her eyes flutter shut.

* * *

Clarke is working when someone decides to stand between her and the sun and throw their shadow over the dark spot she was just about to get rid of. She looks up to find Raven’s blinding smile.

“What’re you doing here, cadet?”

Clarke has only known Raven for a couple of days, but the girl is already growing on her with her light disposition. She masks her burgeoning smile with an eyeroll.

“Since when is army terminology part of the pirate lingo?”

“Shiver me timbers! Me matey think’she know ‘bout the sweet trade.” Raven’s attempt at an old pirate accent is plain horrifying. From the way she cackles right after, slapping Clarke’s back for good measure, she’s well aware of that. “Arrr.”

Clarke is still getting her breath back from the harsh slap when she wheezes, “That was terrible.”

“So are your mopping skills if you can’t see that there’s literally nothing left to clean.”

Raven takes the mop from her hands with a smirk and throws it inside the bucket. Clarke marvels at the woman's impeccable aim for a moment, before Raven pulls her focus back to her with a goading hand on her forearm.

"Come on, let's get out of here. I've heard you're dying to see Lemuria." Clarke's hesitation must show on her face, for Raven sighs and her face softens. "Look, I talked to Captain, it's okay. Besides, it's not like the crew is here to dirty the floors anyway. Whatever you cleaned yesterday is likely gonna stay clean."

Clarke gives in with a sigh, motioning to a grinning Raven to lead the way.

* * *

Clarke feels silly being wonderstruck by every new thing she sees, but the truth is that everything _is_ new. And everything is incredible.

Having grown up in a planet entirely made of water, where everything solid was man-made, it’s always weird to feel the give of the ground beneath her feet. She feels unsteady, at times. It’s weirder even to see buildings hoisted upon it without dangling sideways perilously. It’s also strange to see the sea bathe the land in the distance instead of swallowing it whole.

Once on the ground, Clarke takes the chance to admire the ship from the outside. Her suspicion is confirmed: it _is_ magnificent. What surprises her, however, is that it’s not the only one of its kind. Almost every spaceship in the docks is reminiscent of the pirate galleons of old, some more creatively crafted than others, with sails of many colors, and some heavily armed. Now, Clarke regrets keeping her eyes down rather than up the whole time she was mopping yesterday, for this is a view she would rather not have missed the first time.

The city doesn’t cease to surprise her as she and Raven delve farther into it. Paved streets wind around and between buildings that tower over them from at least a thousand feet tall. Public transports fly at half height, coming down to the ground only to drop off and pick up passengers, while cargo and bigger ships navigate the air above the buildings. The spaceships provide a fascinating contrast to the neoclassical style of the architecture, which is also offset by random tufts of bushes, trees, and other plants perched upon the ledges of each edifice, crawling up and down as if to show that no amount of manufacturing can elude nature. That the environment always finds a way to circumvent walls raised by hands rather than wildlife.

Raven takes Clarke to the market, where necessities and technology are sold at the same price ranges and every salesperson looks shadier than the previous one. Raven practically drools over some pieces for something about… something, and Clarke takes the chance to tail away.

It’s an art she’s perfected over the years, escaping people. As a teenager, eager and curious to explore the world outside the palace, she would drive her handmaidens and bodyguards mad by dodging them and slipping into the capital unnoticed, leaving them behind to face her parents’ exasperation. It’s even easier now to lose someone like Raven, untrained to follow her around in a big crowd.

Blades of all shapes and sizes interrupt her stroll down the street, pulling her to the stall selling them. Behind the counter, a woman close to Clarke’s age leans forward to smile at her.

“Hey ther’.”

The woman’s long, luscious hair gets in the way of her eyes and her jovial grin should put her off, but she finds it oddly charming. She feels like she’s a teenager again, looking down with a blush at something Timmy, the cute boy with dark blue skin and an earring hanging from a pointy ear, said. Now, it’s a girl with an impish smirk and deep, brown eyes winking at her — and she feels stupid for her silly reaction, but no less bashful.

“Can I know yer name?” the girl asks, and her feminine voice makes the otherwise grating accent quite charming.

Clarke snaps out of her stupor to smile back at the girl and croak, “I’m Clarke.”

“Lovely name for a lovely lady. I’m Ontari, by the way. From the planet Az, hence the ugly accent. Though something tells me ye like it,” the girl adds with a wink. And, okay, that’s way too on the nose, but it works for some reason and it leaves Clarke feeling even sillier. “Ye’re not from around her’, ar’ye Clarke?”

She opens her mouth to answer but finds that her voice fails her. She clears her throat.

“I’m not. I’m actually—” She averts her gaze to the knives, hoping it will be easier to talk to them than the intense girl framed by them, clears her throat again. “Do you, um.” She points at one of the smaller daggers. “How much does this cost?”

“For ye, I’d sell it for free, but,” Ontari trails off with a pout. “Unfortunately, I’m only’er’ to help a friend, this is his stall.” Ontari halts, seems to consider thinking. It piques Clarke’s interest. “I can just pretend I lost it,” the mischievous glint in the girl’s eyes is replaced by something darker, hungrier, as she leans closer, “if ye tell me what ye’re doing on a pirate ship.”

The suggestion takes Clarke aback. It dawns on her that Ontari was sweet talking her only to get intel — on the Captain or Clarke herself, she isn’t sure — and she fell for it without a second thought. Something twists inside her, burning hotter than shame, and compels her to pin Ontari down with a glare. “Fuck you.”

The girl growls and moves like lightning to grab Clarke’s wrist, forcing her closer over the stall. She tries to wrench free, but Ontari’s bruising grip is too strong.

“Let her go, Ontari.”

Ontari drops Clarke’s hand as if burned. Clarke takes a fortifying breath and plasters on her best smile, knowing she will have a lot of explaining to do, before she turns to face her savior.

“Thanks, Raven.”

Raven waves her off with a reassuring smile. Her focus turns to Ontari, features shifting into a scowl. “Whatever you were thinking of doing, forget it. She’s Lexa’s.”

Clarke’s mind gets stuck on _who the fuck is Lexa_ for a fraction of a second but wrangles out of it quickly to focus on a more pressing matter.

“Actually, I’d like to point out that I am nobody’s property,” she supplies helpfully.

Raven turns to her with a raised eyebrow. “I’m going to need you to shut up for a second.”

Clarke does as told and watches with great satisfaction as Raven tells Ontari off, and then turns on her heels abruptly before the girl from Az can get another word in. She jogs up to the Quartermaster, falling into pace beside her.

Raven allows the silence only a few seconds of existence. The quirked eyebrow seems to be a permanent fixture over her eyes.

“Why were you trying to buy a weapon?”

Although unsurprised at the question, Clarke knows she needs to tread carefully if she’s to come out of this somewhat unscathed.

“I was just looking. And I only asked about that one because it was beautiful, but I never meant to buy it. I don’t even have money on me,” she adds with a shrug.

Raven scrutinizes her for a few seconds, likely trying to find the lie in what she said. In the end, she seems to find nothing, because she shrugs and smiles and prompts, “Come on. I’ll show you around.”

Lemuria is a planet built for pirates such that only they can find it. Besides the fact that very few people who aren’t pirates know of its existence, the Jolly Roger flag is the key to make Lemuria visible to space trekkers. It works as a sort of beacon, according to Raven, although most of the terms she employs are lost on Clarke.

Raven tells her the legend of how Biringan was born. Centuries ago, Lemuria was ravaged by a great war between the kingdoms of Earth and Water. Thousands fell, but their bodies would disappear a day after their death. In the midst of war, the princesses of both kingdoms fell in love. Tired of the battles fought between their fathers, they decided to run away together and never look back. On their travels, they stumbled upon a great field of green crisscrossed by eight rivers, the number of hours a day has on Lemuria. There, they found everyone who had died in the war — and they were all alive, living in perfect harmony. The princesses saw it as a sign to end the fighting and ran back to their respective kingdoms to tell their fathers about the city where those they thought deadforgot about their differences and lived in peace. Their parents didn’t heed their calls, however, and decided to keep fighting. But the girls had been heard by others and, fast as word travels, not much later friends and families of soldiers gone were migrating, led by the princesses, to find their loved ones. Soon both kings had no soldiers left to fight their war and had no choice but to bury the hatchet. By then, thousands had moved to the city of lost souls, expanding its walls far past the field of green the princesses had initially found — and under the two women’s rule, it continued to prosper and grew larger still, becoming a safe haven for all that wished peace. It became a beacon of hope.

Nowadays, the field of green and the eight rivers that traverse it remain at the center of Biringan, surrounding a beautiful palace, which houses the government, courthouses, and other central powers. From being a safe haven for all, the capital of Lemuria became a pirate haven, but it hasn’t lost its magic and the one rule has survived the reviews and rewrites of time — no fighting. Although everyone and their mother has some sort of weapon on them, no one ever uses it, as per the law of the sanctuary.

As it turns out, the market and the field are only a part of Biringan. As they weave through the narrow paths of the fair, Clarke learns that the city, a perfect circle if seen from above, is divided in eight slices, each separated from the others by rivers, one of them being the market.

The other seven slices harbor, in clockwise order, the docks, the mechanic shops (where pirates repair their ships), nightlife (where they can spend their gains on alcohol and prostitutes), banks (loans, financing treasure hunts, et cetera), the library (where pirates can either brush up on their grammar and history, or seek all kinds of data from the extensive records filed along the hundred-feet tall shelves), temples for all religions, and, of course, the residential area, which is small, since most people who traverse the streets of Biringan only do so in passing, either to replenish their stock or their batteries, or to recruit or be recruited.

All in all, it’s an impressive city. The food is good, too, from the samples Clarke manages to charm off the sellers and the small lunch Raven buys them after a while. The flavors are rich and fresh, edging towards sweet and spicy and brimming with color.

“Lexa loves the library,” Raven drawls as they cross the bridge towards the temples segment, “‘If I want to be a good captain today, I should know everything about the captains of yesterday’ is what she likes to say. Or something like that.”

Clarke stops in her tracks. _Lexa_ is the _Captain_? She reckons she ought to have realized it sooner, considering the context every time Raven said the Captain’s name, but for some reason it never registered.

“Wait, the Captain’s name is Lexa?” she voices at last, treading closer to the real source of her confusion.

“Yeah,” Raven answers like it’s obvious. Perhaps it is, all things considered. “What did you think it would be? Clarice?”

She sidesteps Raven’s absurd example and focuses on the rest. “No, it’s just—”

 _It doesn’t suit her_.

The truth is Lexa is a pretty name. It’s a soft name, gentle, almost like a flower or a small stream gliding over pebbles among and around autumn-red leaves. Delicate. It’s smooth angles and kind words; everything the Captain isn’t, with her harsh edges, threatening tone, and hardened exterior. _Lexa_ is sunny, it has a certain give. The Captain is cold and intransigent. Such a pretty name, with its soft _k_ and gentle _ss_ , and an ‘a’ so open to every possibility, can’t possibly belong to someone so ruthless and aloof.

“I don’t know, I guess it’s just odd to put a name not just to a face, but a whole personality,” is what she says instead.

Raven hums, although Clarke suspects she didn’t really understand her reasoning. It might be for the best.

Some hours later, Raven leads her inside a bar, arguing that the only thing that can heal legs tired from a day of walking is a healthy dose of alcohol. Clarke is pretty sure that just about every single doctor in the universe would deny such an outlandish claim, but who is she to destroy a girl’s dreams.

One would think that, after weeks or even months on a ship, pirates would get tired of the pirate motif, but that’s apparently not the case. The bar is all wood, with bannisters like the edge of a ship, barrels for chairs, and table cloths fashioned from white sails.

With a drink in her hand and her chest warm from the pleasant conversation, Clarke finally asks the question that has been lingering on the tip of her tongue for a while.

“Why have you been so nice to me? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m thankful for it, more so considering that no one else has made such an effort to help me fit in,” she rushes to add at the sight of Raven’s frown. “But… Why?”

“I know what it is like to feel that you don’t belong. To feel like you’re living in a home that isn’t yours,” Raven answers with a rueful smile, her voice gentle. “I know it’s not the same situation, but I felt like that about my body, a long time ago, when I realized the gender that had been assigned to me was not my true self. In that case, the only solution was to acknowledge that I wasn’t who and what people told me I was and to do something about it.” Clarke’s nod propels her forward. “But in your case, maybe you can grow to call the ship home, or _a_ home. I don’t think we have to be limited to feeling at home in _one_ place or with _one_ person, you know? I think it’s possible to feel that in several places and with several people. So… I’m just trying to help you feel less lonely, like the crew helped me when I was figuring myself out. No one deserves to feel alone.”

“That’s really noble of you, Raven,” she says honestly and a little bit in awe of this strong woman, whose experience has empowered her and motivated her to help others.

Raven smiles smugly and tips the tail end of her drink past her lips. She slams the tankard back on the table with fanfare. “Noble? I don’t know, that’s not up to me to decide. Awesome, though? Most definitely.”

Clarke snorts and her eyes do a wide sweep of the room for the first time. Her mood sours considerably when she spots the Captain at the bar, nursing a jug between long fingers. It gives her an idea.

When she turns back to Raven, she makes sure her voice won’t be heard by anyone around them.

“Have you ever… considered being captain?” She takes Raven’s frown as incentive to go on. “I’m sure Lexa is a nice captain and all, but… You’re a good person, Raven. You could make a difference. Have you maybe thought of—”

“I’m gonna stop you right there.” Raven’s tone isn’t harsh per se, but there is an underlying threat to her words. They’re too calm, too measured. Her smirk is too grim. “Everyone on the _Ripa_ loves Lexa, me most of all. She saved me. I owe her my life. She’s also my best friend. That means I get to smack her upside the head from time to time, so to speak, but remember this.” Raven eyes their surroundings and leans closer and this time, when she speaks, there is real danger to her every word, “If I get word that you’ve been spreading shit like that about my Captain, I’ll fucking throw you off the ship in the middle of space. Are we clear?”

Clarke can only swallow and nod. Serious Raven is a lot scarier than the Captain and she will do everything not to make her cross again.

“Good.” Raven smiles then, knocking her tankard into Clarke’s, which has been lying dead on the table for the past few minutes. “To new friendships and great treasures. I have a feeling you’re gonna do just fine.”

Oddly — or maybe not, since she’s dealing with a pirate, and pirates are famously a couple screws short of being sane — the rest of the conversation flows naturally and without a hitch, as though Clarke’s slipup never happened.

It’s an hour or so later that Clarke’s eyes stumble upon the Captain again. This time, two girls are fawning over her, each hanging over one shoulder. Clarke scoffs and draws Raven’s attention to the ludicrous scene unfolding right in front of their eyes.

“I know she’s your friend, but,” she snorts, torn between rolling her eyes or laughing at the ridiculousness of it all, “is she just trying to tick all the boxes for pirate stereotypes?”

Raven smirks and shrugs, clearly unbothered by the situation and more than used to it.

“I told you, she’s popular. But that’s actually the one box she isn’t interested in ticking. Or tickling,” the Quartermaster appends with a silly wiggle of her brows. “Her type is more along the lines of red curls, lip ring, and a bad attitude. For decompressing, at least.”

“Decompressing?”

Her raised eyebrow earns her a nonchalant shrug from Raven. She doesn’t really care, though, and the only thought that lingers is who the hell has red hair and a lip ring, but even that fades quickly away when Raven pulls her back into conversation.

When she looks over again, almost an hour later, the trio’s down to two sulking girls. As for the Captain, she’s nowhere to be seen.

* * *

It hits her when she returns to the ship. Her insides turn and churn and twist painfully and guilt curls around her heart like a fist, clenching and clenching until it feels like the muscular organ is about to burst under the tight grip.

How _dare_ she have fun when her people need her? How _dare_ she lose focus?

While she was strolling around the streets of Biringan, her people were careening towards a dead end. An overdramatic scenario, granted, nonetheless the one that takes up immediate residence in her mind’s eye and haunts her as she makes her way back to her room, steps heavy and feet dragging. It feels like she has rocks tied around her limbs and she’s going down, down, down.

She makes her decision when she spots the sphere on the side table, where she left it. She grabs it and leaves her room, heading for the quarterdeck. She doesn’t bother knocking before storming into the Captain’s office, the guilt grappling her heart overshadowing everything else.

The Captain is once again studying maps on the round table, although this time she looks especially concerned. Clarke barely registers that while the red blanket remains on the couch, the stuffed raccoon has moved to the desk. The Captain looks up at the flurry of sounds and movement raised by Clarke’s grand entrance.

“Excellent timing, Clarke. I need to talk to you about something. Though I would appreciate it if you knocked,” the Captain remarks, returning her gaze to the maps.

Any other time, Clarke would be annoyed at the Captain’s words and come up with a rebuttal. They would then enter a cold war of words and come out of it disliking each other even more than when they’d entered the conversation.

This isn’t any other time, though. This time, Clarke is too troubled with more pressing matters to concern herself with such trivialities as raising to the Captain’s challenge. This time, she hardly notices the pirate’s jabs and barrels through straight to the point.

“What will happen to me when we find the treasure?”

It gives the Captain pause. A green eye leaves hand-drawn stars and planets to focus on blue ones. Lexa’s expression is inscrutable, although Clarke thinks she can detect some hesitancy in the girl’s eye, which even without its pair speaks so loudly it fills the silence left by the words the Captain rarely speaks.

“When, or rather if, we find the treasure, I can do you the courtesy of taking you home.”

It’s grating that they’re back to the same conversation as a few nights ago. The Captain can’t be the sharpest knife in the drawer if she keeps hammering past Clarke’s indirect pleas.

“I don’t want that.”

One of the Captain’s eyebrows raises and with it, so do Clarke’s hackles. “You are in no position to make demands, Clarke.”

She wets her lips, trying to keep her temper in check. She needs to appear cold and calculating, like the Captain, if she wants to get her way. The other woman won’t be swayed by emotion.

“Let’s make a deal.” The Captain’s head tilts, showing her interest. “If you deem the treasure to be as great as I say it is, you let me stay on the ship. Indefinitely.”

The Captain chews on the inside of her lower lip, mulling it over. She knows she has given the pirate no reason to trust her, so she needs her to take this leap of faith. Even if, in the end, it will be in vain. So lost is she in her thoughts that she doesn’t register right away that the Captain has seemingly reached a conclusion.

“And if it disappoints me?” the Captain dares.

Her eye is a dark forest, ridden with riddles and snares. Clarke knows better than to take any steps without searching the ground for traps and landmines first.

“Then you can drop me off wherever you want,” she coaxes. “We part ways and never see each other again.”

“I would very much like that. But I need better insurance than just the relief of your absence.”

Clarke has met some very nice pirates on this ship. The Captain isn’t one of them. Right now, there is nothing she would like more than to shove both her middle fingers up the woman’s nose.

“Name your price,” she hazards, knowing she’s entering murky waters. She hopes they don’t turn out to be moving sands: she’s already metaphorically in over her head; she’d rather it not be half literal too.

The Captain locks eyes with her, the slightest uptick playing at the corner of her lips. “All cards on the table?”

Clarke feels her heart beating faster, stronger. It thumps in her ears and the tips of her toes. “All cards on the table.”

The Captain’s gaze returns to the table, where maps of regions Clarke knows little to nothing of are spread out. The setup is very much the same as last time, although now there is a revolver on the table next to the pistol. The pirate picks it up, along with Clarke suspects is a bullet from the old days.

“Are you familiar with the term ‘Russian roulette’?” Clarke shakes her head. The Captain opens the cylinder of the revolver and inserts the bullet in one chamber. “I found this revolver when I returned to my home planet, many years after my people were decimated. That’s what humans do,” the Captain mutters, almost quietly as a whisper, as though she’s talking to herself more than Clarke.

She swipes at the cylinder and it spins and spins and then stops and, with a jerk, clicks back into place. Clarke’s stomach drops, but her feet are rooted in place.

“The Russian roulette is a game of chance,” the Captain goes on, inner musings all but forgotten, in that almost bored tone Clarke hates. “You load a bullet into one chamber of a revolver, spin the cylinder, and then pull the trigger. It either kills someone or it spares their life. But don’t worry, Clarke. I’m a pirate; not a murderer. What most people forget is that, originally, the revolver was supposed to be pointed at one’s own head.”

The Captain twists the revolver so the end is resting against her temple. Clarke’s throat tightens.

“I don’t trust you, Clarke. I don’t think I ever will. You are harboring too many secrets for me to ever let my guard down around you like that.” And, okay, that’s a bit unfair, because Clarke really only has one secret, but she would be much more capable of defending herself right now if the Captain would just put. The gun. Down. “I know you have your own agenda, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it could clash with me and my crew’s. It hasn’t thus far. But it could. So this revolver is the trust I will be placing in you for this mission. Let’s see if kills me.”

Clarke’s screamed _No!_ gets stuck in her throat when the Captain pulls the trigger.

_Click._

She wasn’t even aware she’d closed her eyes when the Captain’s finger pulled the trigger. When she opens them and sees Lexa’s infuriating smirk (and it annoys her even more that once again it isn’t even a _real_ smirk, but more of a minute shift in the woman’s facial expression), pure, red-hot anger bubbles from her chest, simmering and burning its way to the surface.

“What the _fuck_ were you thinking?” she snaps, yanking the revolver from Lexa’s stupid hands. She wrenches the cylinder out and goes to remove the bullet— there’s no bullet. All the chambers are empty. She stares in confusion at the weapon, before looking up at Lexa, who’s still wearing that vexing smirk on her lips. “How did—” she trails off, at a loss for words. Lexa adds a piqued eyebrow to the smirk.

“Sleight of hand.”

Clarke’s nostrils flare and she half-heartedly throws the revolver at Lexa, who catches it easily. “You arrogant asshole,” she hisses.

Lexa places the gun back on the table and addresses her again. The smirk and the raised eyebrow are gone, replaced by a solemn expression. The Captain’s hands are folded over her front, giving her an air of calm authority.

“I am sorry I made you go through that, Clarke,” the pirate concedes a battle to win the war. “But I will not apologize for testing you, for the sake of my people. I needed to see your reaction.”

Clarke rolls her eyes but decides to cut her losses anyway. An idiotic captain is better than none at all. “Well, did you get the reaction you were looking for?”

The Captain shifts in place, tightens the hold of her hands together.

“I have decided to trust you. It might be a mistake, but this is a risk I am willing to take. You showed just now that you care about other people’s lives, even if you don’t care about the people themselves”, says the Captain, with a quirked eyebrow. “I value that.”

A test of character. The Captain just brought Clarke close to a heart attack and shaved ten years off her life expectancy just to see if she was a _nice_ person. To know if she _cares_. Honestly, wouldn’t it be easier to just ask her if she likes stealing from babies and kicking puppies?

“You’ve made your point,” Clarke states, wanting nothing more than to get this done and over with. “What do you want then?”

“Nothing.”

Clarke pauses, stumped. Nothing? What does that even— “What do you mean?”

The Captain shrugs, impassive. “I don’t doubt that the treasure will be as great as you promised, so asking for something in the event that it isn’t would be moot.” Clarke doesn’t count it as a victory just yet; she knows there is more to come. So she waits — and the Captain doesn’t disappoint. “Still, I am at a disadvantage. As such, I want a favor, regardless of how grand the treasure may be, and I get to choose when to collect it.”

Clarke mulls it over, lips pressed together. It’s a dangerous deal, but she doesn’t have a choice. Besides, if things go according to _her_ plan, the Captain won’t even have a chance to collect the favor. But first, she must add two conditions to the fold.

“That’s too vague and it leaves you with too many options,” she counters. The Captain cocks an eyebrow, indicating for her to continue. “I’ll take it on two conditions. One, you can’t make me leave. Two, you can only collect it _after_ we find the treasure.”

Clarke can almost see the Captain turning the curated deal over in her head, picking at it with those long, bony fingers and a narrowed green eye. If she’s being honest, Clarke is kind of glad that the Captain is missing an eye, because she’s not sure she — or anyone, really — would be able to withstand the intensity of a two-eyed glare.

She tries to imagine what the Captain would look like with a second eye instead of the black, strapless eyepatch, but fails. Maybe that’s for another Lexa, one who isn’t captain of a pirate ship. This one, however, feels wrong without the eyepatch. Clarke remembers Raven’s words about Lexa looking like the quintessential pirate. Maybe it’s because she’s only known her like that, but Clarke thinks it fits Lexa, somehow. It fits the aura she exudes as ‘The Captain’, at least in her mind. She wonders if it would still fit if she knew Lexa better.

She brushes those thoughts away when the Captain speaks at last. “That seems fair.” They share a nod, before the Captain directs their attention to the maps. “Which leads me to another pressing matter. Ideally, the best way to Laniakea would be through the Strait of Baawicky, but I got word today that there was a supernova there less than a week ago. Obviously, it puts a dent in our plans. It would be far too dangerous to cross it.”

“Ok,” Clarke murmurs, looking over the maps. “What would be a good option then? I’m not really an expert.”

“I wanted to talk to you because it’s an important decision and, considering you’re half of the interested party, I figured you should get to weigh in.”

Clarke lets out a hum, equal parts pleased and surprised. She was not expecting the Captain to be respectful of her position, judging from the past few days. “What do you have in mind?”

The Captain traces imaginary routs on the maps with her index finger. “We could take the Rahman-Tolem Channel, but it’s a long journey and it would deplete our resources, forcing us to make more stops. The Roman Lane, on the other hand, is a common pirate trading route and we are trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. The less pirates we meet on our journey the better.”

“What does that leave us with?”

The Captain taps a fourth pathway on the map. “Tartarus.” Well if that doesn’t sound promising. “It’s almost as short as the Strait of Baawicky, which would allow us to stay on schedule and manage our resources better than the other two options.”

Clarke raises her eyes from the map to the Captain’s, narrowing them. “What’s the catch?”

No road can be called Tartarus and _not_ have a catch. It sounds like doom — she doesn’t imagine that it wasn’t named accordingly. True to form, the Captain purses her lips.

“It’s dangerous. Almost no one ever goes there. There are,” the Captain’s tongue pokes out to wet her lips, biding some time, “ _stories_ of strange creatures that haunt it.”

Clarke snorts. She almost lets out a full-belly laugh, too, but the Captain’s scowl cuts it off before it can leave her lips. “ _Stories_?” Lexa clenches her jaw, looks to the side. “What do you think we could find there? Ogres? Mermaids? Prince Charming?” Clarke _could_ use finding a Prince Charming. She bats the offending thought away and focuses on Lexa’s eyeroll. “Captain, do you… Do you believe in _fairytales_?”

“I don’t,” Lexa rushes to say, way too quickly. “But the crew might. Pirates are traditionally superstitious. Going through Tartarus could harm the crew’s morale.”

“Could it harm _your_ morale?”

“No.”

Clarke scrambles to find a solution for their predicament. Tartarus is clearly the best way to go. Short and out of the way, maybe even better than the original plan. And there, she realizes, lies the answer.

“That’s what they want you to believe,” she starts, gaining momentum off the Captain’s attention. “It’s so obvious. You said pirates are impressionable, right?” Lexa nods. “So all you would have to do to get a perfect trading route such as this all for yourself would be spinning some scary tale about monsters and some weird phenomena and _voilà,_ no one goes there anymore.”

The Captain’s stare is piercing, as usual. “Are you saying someone made those stories up?”

“Yes,” Clarke confirms, doubling the intensity of her gaze. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.” 

The Captain’s eye narrow, but never leaves Clarke’s frame. “That actually makes sense.”

“I know. I mean, you seem… kind of honorable,” she ignores the way the Captain’s chest puffs, “but I know from first-hand experience that not all pirates are like you.”

“We have a code, though,” Lexa says with a frown. It’s almost endearing to read the disappointment in her voice. “One that strictly forbids what you are suggesting.”

Clarke is pretty sure half of her time on this ship is spent scoffing. “What’s more believable? A greedy pirate or space mermaids?”

The Captain foregoes acknowledging that Clarke is right, jumping straight to the obvious outcome of their debate.

“It is decided, then. We set a course for Tartarus.”

It feels like a dismissal; Clarke takes it for it. She turns to leave and is almost out the door when the Captain calls her name. The pirate doesn’t bother looking up from the maps, where she seems to be making measures, when Clarke turns back around.

“Take the evening to rest. First thing tomorrow, report to Raven. You will learn the various crafts of our crew from her.”

Clarke goes to say thank you, but it seems so surreal, that she has to ask, “I’m off mopping duty?”

This time, the Captain looks up and meets her eyes steadily, her face blank. It’s an uncomfortable change from their interaction just a minute ago. “Yes.” Again, Clarke almost shows her gratitude, before the Captain raises a hand, cutting her short. “Thank Raven, not me. It would seem she has taken it upon herself to vouch for your best interests.”

* * *

Clarke leaves the Captain’s cabin with a wide smile, still disbelieving of this turn of events. Her excitement tangles with the regret she felt when she entered the ship and brightens her thoughts, because this could be beneficial not just for her, but also her plan to help her people. Just yesterday, if someone had told her a visit to the Captain would help her feel better, she would have laughed.

Unable to go to bed and rest, with all the energy buzzing through her, she decides to explore the parts of the ship that Raven didn’t show her.

Most of it isn’t that interesting, at least not in normal circumstances, but she’s still in that stage where everything is a novelty and every replication of an old galleon looks amazing. If this was a marriage, she’d still be in the honeymoon phase.

Her surprise is even bigger when she finds the gym. It’s so out of place, in this wooden relic, that it fits. She goes in, absorbing every detail: the scary arsenal of weapons on two walls (one with guns and the other with blades, staffs, and other weapons of the sort), the stall bars on the third one and the climbing setup on the fourth wall. There’s a large sparring mat in the middle of the room, surrounded by all kinds of machines on three sides and a shooting range on the other. The only thing that maintains the running theme of the rest of the ship are the dozens of candles scattered around the gym.

Clarke walks over to the wall littered with guns and picks one she knows is used by the Phorcys military, especially among the higher ranks. The space fleet general, Anya, uses it, and has even allowed Clarke to experiment with it a few times. It’s a standard laser pistol, white with wooden and golden details, with an option to fire both barrels at once, although Anya has told her it isn’t that practical.

(“I just like how menacing it looks, to be honest,” she remembers the general admitting one day, when she was in a great mood. That rare occurrence included only one grunt per hour and a stark softening of her permanent scowl. Sometimes she would even smile.

At least that’s what Clarke thinks Anya’s odd grimace was.)

She clicks away at the closest control panel and chooses the option for laser gun targets. She heads to the shooting range as a holographic picture of a man materializes at the end of the range and gets in position next to a small pillar. Upon inspection, she realizes it allows her to control the distance and height of the target and to bring it closer for evaluation. She shortens the distance between her and the target, positioning it at about fifty yards.

Unlike what she told the Captain, as Princess of Phorcys, Clarke had to learn how to defend herself. She’s not bad at hand-to-hand fighting and wielding more traditional weapons, like swords and staffs, but she excelled at everything long-range, especially arching and firing guns.

She’s rusty now, not having trained in almost a year, but still fairly confident in her abilities.

Lifting the gun to eye level, she aims and relishes the feeling of pulling the trigger. It feels familiar, a rock to hold on to in a sea of unknowns. She shoots once, twice, thrice, four, five, six times at the head, and then another six at the heart.

Satisfied, she pulls the target closer and appraises her work. They’re not quite bullseyes, but they’re close. In a few more sessions, she will be back to shooting like she used to so she will be able to defend herself better, should any danger come her way.

It leaves her feeling off kilter, all of a sudden.

It dawns on her, then, that she might actually need her fighting skills during this trip. One thing is imagining that she may get in danger. Another, completely different, is realizing that’s a very real possibility. And for the first time since she ran away from home, Clarke wonders exactly what she’s gotten herself into.

This is the real world. Being princess no longer protects her.

* * *

* * *

_The throne room was long, with large windows that let the sunlight slant onto the marbled floor in long drapes of gold. A red carpet ran from the double doors to the dais, where the Queen, her husband, and her daughter's thrones sat, the sovereign's in the middle. On each side of the carpet there was a row of four seats leading up to the podium, eight high-backed chairs in total._

_That was where the Council members sat, as they were right now. All but one. Nia stood tall and proud, spewing one imbecility after the other as though she were reciting a poem or citing laws. Clarke dug her nails into the armrests of her throne to keep from interrupting the woman and telling her off on her immensurable, ridiculous ignorance. But that was not how politics worked, so she had to sit idly by while Nia directed not so thinly veiled insults at Clarke and her family._

_"The law is unequivocal," Nia hissed, and Clarke could have sworn that some stray spit ended up on the faces of the Council members nearby._

_"The law also states that the Queen mustn't be interrupted, yet you have shown time and again that you don't care. And I have not punished you once." Abby rose to her feet and addressed the other councilors, "Rules exist to be interpreted as well."_

_"A sovereign must be of royal blood. What is there to interpret, my Queen?"_

_Abby seethed, fingers carving half-moons into the arms of her throne. It was a sight to behold — the usually unshakable woman was close to popping a vein. It was even worse than when she had found Clarke in bed with the new handmaiden’s head between her legs. Not as embarrassing, though, now that Clarke thought about it, and grimaced along with the thought._

_"Clarke is my daughter for all intents and purposes," the Queen pressed, and her frustration could be heard clearly in her voice. "She has been trained since birth to take over when my forty years of mandate are up. Why should we limit her — and ourselves by association, for make no mistake: there is_ no one _better equipped than my daughter to rule this kingdom — because someone, a long time ago, came up with an outdated definition for family?"_

_Nia sneered, but there was a dangerous glint in her eyes. Like she'd already won this fight without anyone else noticing._

_Clarke's eyes widened in tandem with the tightening in her chest at the realization. Nia had predicted that Abby would steer the conversation this way — she’d counted on it, had laid traps around and towards it._

_"Should we dishonor the laws of our people just because you forgot that your adoptive daughter couldn't be queen without a consort? Should we dishonor the creators of our planet, of our society, because she failed to find someone to marry?"_

_"We didn’t forget. She tried to find a consort. There was simply no one suitable," Abby gritted out between her teeth._

_"Even worse. My queen, we all know that wasn't your intention, but certainly you must know how it will look for outsiders. It will look like," Nia hesitated and grimaced, like she was just thinking of it then, like she hadn’t prepared her speech down to a T, "like you deliberately ignored our laws or something of the sort. Or like no one wants to marry the future queen of Phorcys. Can you imagine in how fragile a position that would leave us before our rivals — and even our allies?"_

_Abby sat down, her movements as incisive as her voice. "My daughter will not settle for just anyone. For both her sake and Phorcys'."_

_Clarke's stomach bottomed out at the curling smirk on Nia's lips. It was ephemeral, however, for a moment later it was no longer there._

_"I fully understand, my Queen. The heart wants what it wants." Nia's eyes locked on Abby's with a brand of intensity she'd never seen before on either of them. It spoke of... rancor. Like the Queen had taken something from Nia and the councilwoman still held a venomous grudge. "But she must choose with her head as well as her heart. And_ that _is why I have come up with a possible solution for this... Imbroglio."_

_Fear gripped Clarke's heart when she saw how Roan's chest puff where he stood behind his mother. Roan was Nia's son, born from a marriage as political as it had been short, due to his other parent’s untimely death. In spite of having been raised in a loveless marriage, Clarke knew Roan had never wanted Nia's affection. The issue had been the opposite: Nia's zealousness in grooming him for a destiny that wasn't his own had inflated his ego such that it had become unbearable, even more so considering it wasn't justified. Roan's ass had been molded for a seat it would never perch on._

_"I am aware that this is not the perfect scenario," Nia started in a dulcet voice, "but I believe it may be the best in our current situation. Since the princess has rejected all suitors, there aren't any eligible bachelors left. Fortunately, my son has just returned from his latest — and hopefully last — mission as the Queen's privateer and is ready to court for the princess's hand, as was his intention all along. I believe we are all privy to the,” Nia licked her lips, “brief dalliance the two of them shared in the past."_

_Clarke scoffed. The one night she'd had too many drinks and made one bad decision, and suddenly the tabloids had started spinning stories of a grand romance and star-crossed lovers, quoting non-existent sources and letting their dignity be sucked out of them by vampires like Nia, who Clarke suspected had had a lot of fun fabricating details of secret encounters between Roan and her. The princess and the pirate — never mind that he was actually a privateer —, a cheesy and overly self-indulgent tale of royalty, piracy, and soulmates._

_"Regardless, the princess has tried and failed to find a suitor. Perhaps it is best that now one is found for her," Nia suggested, and if she pressed the 'ss' a little more she could sound like a bona fide snake. She already had the right lilt to her voice. "Roan would be very keen on taking the Princess's hand in marriage. He has always been fond of her and I believe the feeling was mutual, at least, at some point not too long ago." It was all Clarke could do not to roll her eyes. She'd never been_ fond _of Roan. He was an arrogant prick with delusions of grandeur. She'd rather watch paint dry than hear Roan talk about himself and his great adventures in space. "Furthermore, they would make a beautiful couple and give our country beautiful children._ True _royal children,” she added with a pointed look at Abby and Clarke. “I believe it would be, as our ancestors would say, the lesser of two evils if the Princess took my son as her consort."_

_"What, so you can kill me and have the throne to yourselves?" Clarke blurted, regretting it the moment her words got out of her mouth unbidden and with no regard for her valiant attempts at self-control._

_Her mother's glower and the fake hurt on Nia's face confirmed what she already knew: she'd played right into the councilwoman's hands. Now, Nia was the concerned citizen giving her and the country the best way out of a hairy situation, whereas Clarke was the childish princess who couldn't bear the thought of sharing her crown._

_"Your majesty, I would never lay a finger on you. Believe it or not, my dear, I care about you very much." The stare Nia pinned her in place with was intense, heavy with the emotions her words had portrayed. Oddly, it rang true. "You are my could have been." Nia looked down for a second, then up and back into Clarke's eyes with renewed strength, albeit colder. "The entire planet's, in fact. Of course, if you marry Roan — or any eligible bachelor of age whom you haven't rebuffed yet, if you find one —, that 'could have been' will become a reality. Fool yourself not, your majesty, I_ want _you to be Queen."_

 _The rest of the Council agreed with Nia's statement and Clarke felt more cornered than ever, painted in an unfavorable light she had practically leapt under herself. But she didn't want to be queen — she_ had _to be. There was no one better suited than her to lead Phorcys, which was now at risk of falling into the wrong hands. Thus, she steeled herself and tried to think of possible solutions._

 _An idea started to take form, a mix of want and should and what if. It was so very fragile still, and fuzzy, but it was the beginning of something. A seldom explored before desire pulling her towards a decision under the guise of could and should and must. No. It_ was _what she had to do that motivated her. If only she could work out the finer details of the crooked and slightly smudged sketch of an idea that was currently burning itself into her mind’s eye._

_Clarke was snapped out of her thoughts by the sound of another a Council member rising from their seat. It was Bendu, whose progressive technological thinking clashed with recalcitrant traditionalism on all things heritage and law._

_"If I may, your majesty," he spoke up, addressing the Queen, who nodded at him to continue. "I am sure the Princess had the best interests of Phorcys on her mind when she rejected every single one of her suitors.” Clarke wanted to hang her head in shame but refused to show weakness. “Nonetheless, she is without a consort, with less than four months left in your reign, and the law does state, rather indubitably, that one must either have royal blood or be married to someone whose heart pumps such color, in order to rule over our planet."_

_"Do you have a suggestion, Councilor Bendu?" Abby interrupted, and Clarke knew her patience was wearing thinner and thinner. "Or do you just have a penchant for stating the obvious?"_

_He spluttered with affront, before smoothing down the folds of his tunic, finding his voice and his words._

_"What I meant to say was, good though the Princess's intentions may have been, it is a fact that she has been unable to find a spouse. We could even give her another four months to find one, but who_ is _there that she hasn’t already spurned? I believe the Princess had her chance to look for one and, having failed, and because we all agree that there is no one better suited than her majesty to be Queen, it is time we take more," he cleared his throat, clutching the folds of his robe, stalling the conclusion of his own speech, "radical measures."_

_"If the Princess can't choose a consort, then we shall choose one for her," another Council member abridged for him._

_That was the final push Clarke needed to let her sprouting idea bloom._

_“Yes,” Bendu concurred with a nod, as did all the others with hums and ayes. “And I don’t think I am the only one to set my sights on Lord Roan for that, as a direct descendant of the last king of Midash.”_

_Roan could_ not _be king. That was something anyone who could see beneath his well-mannered surface was aware of. He was selfish and power-hungry, just like his mother, and would never make decisions with the best interests of Phorcys at heart. If Roan became king, Phorcys would enter a spiral of spending above and beyond its gains, excessive armament and wrongful use of technological advancements, and drawing up laws that would suit him and his family rather than the people._

_If Roan became king, Phorcys would be doomed._

_Clarke couldn’t let that happen._

_Abby sighed and rubbed her temples. Clarke couldn’t blame her — she knew there was no way out of this, at least not now. “Lord Roan,” she called, and the devil stood to attention. “Would you be willing to partake in such a_ convoluted _plan?”_

_As expected, he nodded solemnly. “It would be an honor, my Queen,” he acquiesced in his gruff, grating voice._

_“Clarke?” her mother prompted, even though they both knew it was useless. She nodded as well._

_“All in favor please raise your hand.” Every Council member raised their hand. Not even the Queen could contradict a unanimous vote from the Council. Doing so would generate discontent; in extreme cases, it could cause an uprising. “Very well,” Abby yielded, sounding defeated. Clarke felt for both her mother and herself. A glance at her father and she saw the same grim expression on his face. “Princess Clarke is to marry Lord Roan in three months, approximately one month before the end of my reign, when I will have completed the maximum forty years of rule allowed by law. Preparations begin in a week.”_

_No matter how rough the sketch of Clarke’s idea still was, it would have to do. She would work the finer details as she went. Right now, however, she had a more immediate concern — planning her escape from Phorcys in one week._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love mocking my own story (and myself), if you haven't noticed. Learn to laugh at yourself before you laugh at others and all that.
> 
> Some trivia from the first two chapters:  
> \- Phorcys was a primordial sea god, so I thought it would be fitting to name a planet made of water after him. He was kind of repugnant though;  
> \- Silver Slade comes from the names of the only two Disney villains who got redemption, John Silver (Treasure Planet) and Amos Slade (The Fox and the Hound). Besides, it sounds really cool;  
> \- Cheng I Sao/Ching Shih was an actual person and widely considered to be the most successful pirate in history, based on the fact that she commanded the largest crew ever assembled. But she was a woman and Chinese so Hollywood doesn’t particularly care for her. The Red Flag Fleet did include over 1800 recorded ships and she was so good she managed to retire peacefully and died on her own bed as a free woman, unlike Charles Vane, Calico Jack, Bartholomew Roberts, or Blackbeard.
> 
> And some for this one:  
> \- I actually had a lengthy conversation with *engineers* ~~(my middle brother and my dad)~~ , about what would happen if someone ransacked all of the Sun’s hydrogen and helium, thus preventing it from turning into a red giant. The explanation given in this chapter is what we came up with;  
> \- Deimeikola Ripa means (according to moi) Golden Panther (day-ma(ker)’color);  
> \- the Laniakea Supercluster is where we live! It's a galaxy supercluster of around 100 thousand galaxies, including the Milky Way;  
> \- Lemuria is a hypothetical lost land. It was located either in the Indian or the Pacific Ocean, according to a now-discredited 19th-century scientific theory;  
> \- Biringan is a mythical city that is said to invisibly lie in the Samar province of the Philippines. Biringan means The Black City or The Invisible City in Waray, the local language. It's where one finds the lost.  
> \- The Strait of Baawicky is purely fictional and was named after Walter Baade and Fritz Zwicky, who coined the word "supernova" in 1931;  
> \- The Rahman-Tolem Channel is also fictional. It was named after Ptolemy, who recorded, around 150 AD, five stars that appeared nebulous (basically it was the earliest recording of a nebula, albeit in archaic terms), and Persian astronomer Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi, who mentioned the first true nebula, as distinct from a star cluster.
> 
> So yeah, lots of nerd stuff o/ you can talk to me about it @100hearteyes on Tumblr.
> 
> Also, I'd like to thank sanscarte for his help on a part of the chapter that I really wanted to get right, and as always my wonderful beta booksmusicandtheatre who helps me decipher my own writing and makes it better - even more so with this elephant of a chapter (16k words!).
> 
> Anyway, please leave a comment, I love knowing what you think ^-^


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